


now we're dead roses

by femaletodd



Series: Welcome to the rest of your life, King [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Jon is dead, Melisandre's Prophecy coming true, Sansa Is About To Be Wed, also wishful thinking to top of it off, and then interpretation according to where the tv show went, canon-compliant to the books, with some fan theories in the mix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-01 04:43:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12148857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femaletodd/pseuds/femaletodd
Summary: From Ghost’s eyes, he saw a lone, grey horse racing south. On the back of the courser mounted a girl. He could hear her breaths come out in little hitches and gasps as she grasped with all her might to the reins.Ghost chased after her, sprinting fast and nimble on his feet. She was a delicate little thing. Like a breeze could throw her off the horse. Her back shook as she stifled her sobs. Ghost followed on the horse’s rear, eyes sharp on the hooded figure.She must have sensed him behind her because she turned around and suddenly--Jon woke up with an impossible name on his tongue.





	1. strewn across the open field

The walls closed around her.

A whisper of warning in her ear howled like a knife in her gut. 

“A beauty. Such a beauty,” commented a man. He had handsome features and short, blond locks and a smile that twisted at the edge. A slanted edge she feared she might jump off of.

“Yes, I agree,” said the lean man beside him. A pleased smirk curled his lips and his eyes-- oh, his eyes swirled with inconceivable plots and schemes.

“But--” she spit out of her constricted throat. Blood dribbled out of her lips and sprayed on her feet. Her hands clenched around her wounded stomach. She made to step forward and stumbled to a kneel. “But I--I'm your daughter!”

“A lie. It was a lie, my dearest.” said the lean man, not quite concealing the pitying taunt that curdled in her gut.

“Just a small, pretty lie.”

She opened her mouth to scream or wail, she knew not what, but strong hands grasped her shoulders and wrenched her around. The Hound looked down at her with glowing eyes and one of his chain-mail covered arm swung back. She flinched, swiveling her head to the side bracing for a strike against her cheek. Sandor Clegane’s words reached her ears before his rough yet tender hands did her cheek:

“Pretty little bird with all her pretty little lies,” He rasped into her mouth and his callused hand grabbed her cheeks with a firm grasp. “Won't you sing a song for me?”

Hesitantly, she raised her eyes and looked at him. Traced the grotesque, pink scar running down one side of his face first before she stared into his black as night eyes.

“So pretty,” He murmured breathily and she closed her eyes, let his mouth meld into hers. His hand held her to him but she didn't resist.

When they pulled away, she was staring into grey eyes. She gasped and shoved at the broad chest before her. 

“Alayne,” He called. Her fingers stuck to the black jerkin worn over his torso, feeling a ripple of warmth surround her fingers. He frowned and inspected her with suddenly sharp eyes. “Sansa?”

She shook her head and covered her ears, squeezed her eyes shut and tried to vanquish him with thought alone.

“Wake up,” said someone. 

She squeezed her eyes shut against the voice and the stabbing light that hit the corner of her half-lidded eyes before she realized what that voice meant. She had been dreaming. Well, of course, she had been dreaming. The world wouldn't make sense if that was reality, after all.

She opened her eyes and looked at her handmaiden, Maddy, standing over her. A little groggy and confused, she sat up slowly. The periphery of her consciousness blurred around her and slumber’s sweet sway still lingered at the back of her throat.

“What is it?” she asked, one hand going over to cover her forehead. It ached.

“Your father is calling for you,” said Mya.

Her eyes snapped open. Eddard Stark’s guarded, somber face flashed before her eyes and just as fleeting, his face was replaced with her half-brother’s surly one. 

Something pinged at her brain like an itch but she could not guess as to what. She had had a dream-- mayhaps, another nightmare-- but it was gone the minute she opened her eyes. Now she could only feel the lingering traces of panic and fear and a twinge of betrayal and none of the recollection of what it was exactly she had seen in her dream.

“Oh,” She breathed out. Composure tightened around her torso and her posture righted itself as best as it could. She nodded her head, still feeling pretty drowsy. “I'll be there,”

Maddy turned to go before she paused and whirled around with a grimace caught on her lips. “You should know before you go,” Alayne’s eyes flickered from Maddy’s lips to where her hands were playing a strange game of fidgeting. “There's been a death.”

The world stopped and her blood froze.

A death? 

Her mind raced and her heart jolted to a speedy start under her breasts. 

“Who?” She asked with her mouth dry. 

“Sweetrobin,” Maddy said, her mouth generating some sort of sadness in the pull of her lips but her keen eyes were searching Alayne’s for some response.

No. It was too soon. How?

“How?” She exhaled the question, the wind knocked out of her.

“You should talk to your father about that,” Maddy said, stepping back until she reached the door. The look on her face was strange. “I'm afraid I'm not important enough to be told the how of it.”

“But it must be from the shakes and fits, mustn't it?” Alayne questioned as she searched her wardrobe for a sober, dull-colored dress. Something black or grey. That wouldn't be a big problem. Most of Alayne’s dresses were much like those. She pulled out a charcoal lambswool dress with barely any embroidery. It was perfect.

“I suppose,”

Alayne misliked the way Maddy spoke. It sounded too much like suspicion. A stone dropped into her gut, right where a knife had twisted in her dreams.

It had been a strange dream too. Something ominous and foreboding that rose her hackles.

_ A pretty lie. _

Petyr Baelish’s mocking smile slashed into her mind and the breath inside her chest halted on its way out as she gasped. 

Was it really just a strange dream?

 

  
  


* * *

“We only ever asked Maester Colemon to administer the doses when it was imminent for Lord Robert to fulfill his duties-- measly things though they must be.” Littlefinger was telling Bronze Yohn when Alayne showed up to his tent. Hearing her approaching footsteps, he turned to regard her with a warm, welcoming smile that was set to ease the tense lines beneath her gown. “Ah, there she is. Now, come here, Alayne, Lord Yohn Royce has a few questions he wants to ask of you.”

Hands clenching at her side, she stepped forward, lowered her head demurely and let Lord Yohn’s eyes judge her from head to toe.

“Have you heard about what happened last night, girl?” demanded the bushy-browed, old Lord of Runestone in a gruff, no-nonsense tone.

Feeling like her tongue was trapped in a circle of flames, she shook her head, barely trusting her own voice not to give away her inner trepidations and the perspiration that Father’s dagger-like gaze invited. 

There were two swords pointed at her and the dream was still blaring warning signals at her. 

“Well, it seems that Lord Robert Arryn, Lord of the Eyrie, took to sleep last night and was lost to us for good.” Bronze Yohn informed her.

She swallowed, keeping her eyes pointed down. The intensity of Petyr’s knife of a gaze pushed her to sputter out: “H-h-how?” 

“I suspect too much sweetsleep was administered to the boy,” Yohn said gravely. “It weakens the body, Maester Colemon tells me and yet, I have heard you and your father insisted on giving it to Lord Arryn.”

Tears swelled to her eyes as she thought pitifully:  _ It’s not fair.  _

She just wanted one moment of peace. Her flirtations with Harry Hardyng had been going so swimmingly well. She was enjoying sparkling dances and outlandish feasts and charming tourney matches-- trying to live it like she was in one of those songs herself. She had gained the cherished friendship of Myranda Royce and Mya Stone. Anya Waynwood had warmed up to her. Things had been going exactly according to plan.

So what was this now? Why was Sweetrobin suddenly dead? Didn't she take care of him like he was her own little brother? Didn't she tolerate his abhorrent, bratty behavior? Didn't she pretend his kisses weren't forced upon her lips? Didn't she pretend enough?

Why was this happening to her?

A voice inside her piped up:  _ None of this is fair. But you have to play the game no matter how worthless you think the price is. Because you want to live. _

She finally lifted her head and let Yohn see the tears she shed. He looked startled, bushy eyebrows widening. Sucking in a breath, she set her shoulders back. “Lord Royce, I would feel guilty for all time if it were somehow a fault of mine that Sweetrobin passed away but like Father himself, I only ever instructed Maester Colemon to give Robert sweetsleep when it seemed he wouldn't be able to function in his lordly activities.”

“Oh? And what were those times? Weren't all the Lord’s responsibilities in Petyr Baelish’s hands?” Bronze Yohn asked, voice sharpened with vivid suspicion.

“Not all,” Petyr pointed out from behind her. “We needed Robert to greet guests to the Eyrie and sign papers.”

“Yes, and it helped calm the shakes.” She joined in on Petyr’s defense though it took her some time to realize she was falling into the same snake trap. The snake trap that was tangling herself further and further into his side. “When we descended for the Gates of the Moon, the only reason he could pull through it was because of sweetsleep. If he hadn’t, I can’t imagine he could have gone through with it. He had been so scared and the trembles only worsened the more we descended...”

Yohn didn't appear a bit appeased by the explanation. He seemed determined to find fault here.

And fault he did. He turned to Littlefinger once again and pointed an accusatory finger at him: “You knew what the effects could be. The fact that you deliberately kept dosing him--”

“--I never dosed him myself, my lord. It was all in the hands of the Maester and what his wisdom decided for him. I only instructed when the boy’s shakes and fits disturbed matters of importance.”

“So you wish for me to blame the Maester for only listening to your orders then?”

“The boy was sick, my Lord. As I’m sure you know. He had always been weak. Couldn’t it be that it was just a simple matter of time before the Gods took him from us?”

“And what convenient timing it is. Harry Hardyng ascending to Lordship of the Eyrie and your bastard daughter his betrothed. What did you offer Anya Waynwood, I wonder?”

“I don’t like your tone, Lord Royce. And I certainly don’t like what you seem to be implying.”

“Oh, you’re a clever little snake, aren’t you?”

Who had told Yohn Royce about sweetsleep? Sansa wondered as the two Lords argued. Was it Myranda? Or Maddy, the handmaiden? Or mayhaps, Maester Colemon himself? But if he did, wouldn't he be partially held responsible?

It was all so confounding. Last night, Robert hadn't looked any worse than the day before or the day before that. He had looked just fine to her. 

But his fine was always some kind-of sick, at the least. He had been a frail boy from the start. Mayhaps, it was just time for the Gods to relieve him of his pain. 

And she knew that Yohn Royce’s loud concern over Robert’s death was only a cover for him to finally hold something over Petyr Baelish’s head.

So the question was… was he safe and by proxy, was she safe?

  
  
  
  


“You needn’t worry, my dear. Yohn Royce won’t care for the whole affair once he finds out there’s no evidence here that would lead to my supposed guilt.” Littlefinger said as he fussed with the collar of his velvet doublet in front of a mirror.

“But he’s looking into you,” Alayne insisted. “What if he finds something he isn’t supposed to?”

_ Like me. _ She didn’t add.

He arched a brow, finally looking up to give her a weighing look. “Why? Do you think I’m the type who leaves loose ends just strewn across a cyvasse board?”

Muted by his oppressing, sly eyes, she took her unsaid worries from the back of her tongue and threw them somewhere far and distant into the winds.

“No, of course not, Father.” She said, flickering a look up at him through her lashes. “But won’t this change things too soon? Harry may-- he may--” When Petyr gave her a nod to continue, she carried on with a wince. “He may change his mind about me.”

Father approached her and suddenly, his cool hands were covering her cheeks and his minty breath was in her mouth. A graze of his lips to hers and he was pulling away to grace her with a smile. “Trust me, sweets, now that you have him in your snare, he won’t be able to resist you. You’re too beautiful for that.”

She touched his torso and forced him away. “I understand,”

Petyr took her pushing him all in stride, as he wont to do. He had an ease to him that Alayne couldn’t hope to emulate so she was left with her trepidations and her speechlessness. “And even if he doesn’t, it’s only a matter of time before I unveil you to the world as Sansa Stark, Lady of Winterfell and then, he will want you even more.”

  
  
  
  
  


“ _ Oh, sweet she was, and pure, and fair. The maid with the honey in her hair _ .” crooned the singer Lord Waxley had brought with him to the feast. 

“ _ Her hair! Her hair! The maid with honey in her hair! _ ”

It was a familiar song. No. It was not. Somebody else in someplace else had heard it one time or mayhaps, it was two. Who could count with what was going through her mind? Who could think through the blur?

Her mind was a muddled puzzle. 

The cheer and twinkling of lights were a waste to her sight. For she was not here. Not truly.

An elbow nudged her and she looked to see Myranda standing next to her with her eyebrows raised in concern. “Are you still thinking of Sweetrobin?”

Alayne licked her lips and let Myranda believe it to be so by keeping her mouth shut. Myranda smiled with sympathy. “I know you thought of him like a brother, but--” She rested a hand on Alayne’s shoulder. “Join me in the good cheer for a bit, why don’t you? Before this feast turns into a mourning. Gods forbid, there are already a few amongst us who are just inconsolable about the boy.”

“ _ Oh, I’m a maid, and I’m pure and fair! _

_ I’ll never dance with a hairy bear! _ ”

With a wavering curl of her lips, Alayne said. “It won’t,” Her tongue was scorched by the innumerable lies and worries she had to guard with all her life and it refused to say more. 

“Oh, and I wager you know better than me?” Myranda challenged, smirk tipping the edges of her mouth.

“Oh, I would never,” Alayne said dryly, an amused exhale bursting out of her.

“Alayne,” called a voice from behind her. She turned to see Harry Hardyng waiting for her, his deep blue eyes crinkled in geniality and dimples speckled on either side of his white, straight teeth. She was surprised to see him drawing closer to her.

_ Mayhaps, Father was right.  _

“Harry,” Alayne faltered, at a loss at what to do or say. Her game of seduction with Harry should be put on halt. Shouldn’t it? At least, she thought so. Surely, Harry was busy with being newly administered to his powerful position as Lord of the Eyrie and Warden of the Vale. He had no time to fool around with her.

An excited flutter started up in her stomach. Maybe, Petyr was right! Maybe, Harry really did want her. Maybe, they’d be wed soon and--

_ “Oh, come, they said, oh come to the fair!  _

_ ‘The fair?’ said he, but I’m a bear!” _

She felt him grab her arm and pull her to him, interrupting her inner deliberations. She could feel Myranda’s eyes on them with perhaps, an uneasy green tinge to it, but she couldn’t look back to check because Harry hovered over her with a demanding look to him.

“Come with me,” He instructed, tugging at her hand so she followed him out of the hall and into the brick hallway. A few people were scattered here and there but mostly, it was empty and quiet. Music was still echoing out of the Hall though.

“And how is my pretty lady, today?” Harry murmured into her mouth, backing her into the wall.

_ “A beauty. Such a beauty.”  _ a voice from some half-forgotten memory or dream graced her mind just then.

Sansa restrained the flinch that worked itself into her bones and twisted her mouth into an acceptable version of a flirtatious smile. “I’ve been well, I suppose. Didn’t miss you at all,” She teased, biting her lips. 

“Ah,” He said, flashing her a grin, his eyes all afire with mischief. “That hurts,”

“Does it?” She questioned, softening her voice to the point of indecency, just like Baelish had instructed her. She lifted her head to give him a challenging stare. “Why don’t you tell me all about that?”

“ _ But then she smelled the scent on the summer air. _

_ The bear! The bear! The bear! _

_ All black and brown and covered with hair. _ ”

“I will,” He leaned close, one hand on the wall behind her and one palming her cheek, guiding her lips to his. A chaste kiss was shared before he pulled away. She thought that was it, that they’d go back to discussing what happened with little Robert but apparently, that wasn’t what Harry had in mind. He swooped in and pushed her against the wall, barring her way, kissing her with fierce vigor.

She didn’t know where this was coming from. Yes, they had shared a kiss or two but not like this. His hands went up her waist and with nausea, she was reminded of Petyr Baelish and his mocking little smiles and his slimy little fingers on her. Hands going to clutch at Harry’s tunic, she tried to nudge him back, try to remind him of his station and of hers but something had caught Harry’s mind in a snare and he would not back away. 

_ “I called for a knight, _

_ But you’re a bear! A bear! A bear! _

_ All black and brown and covered with hair!” _

Into their intertwined mouths, she moaned a plea for him to let go but he was deaf to it, it would seem. As she opened her mouth to protest aloud, his tongue glided in and she felt cold sweat break out of her skin. He winded a hand into her deep brown tresses and yanked at them. She let out a yelp and still he intruded, his other hand dangerously close to her rear. 

That was enough. Father wouldn’t like this any more than she did.

She pressed at Harry’s chest and shoved him away with all her strength. “What are you doing?” She demanded, breath gone out of her. Shallow pants slipped out of her in hitches and fragments. 

Harry only smiled and surged forward into her embrace once again, holding her delicate wrist in his grasp. “Alayne, oh Alayne, you don’t know how happy I am this day.”

Heart accelerating, she stared in shock at his unapologetic grin. “What do you mean?”

“I’m to be Lord of the Eyrie. Surely, you knew. That’s why your Father had us betrothed, wasn’t it?”

“I-- I don’t-- what are you--” She didn’t expect him to be so bare-faced about his joy at little Robert’s death. Was there anyone here even trying to pretend that they cared if Sweetrobin died? They were all a bunch of vultures. She shook her head to wave away the inner disgust and contempt she felt and instead, spoke with what little courtesy she could:“--but that doesn’t give you permission to-- to kiss me or touch me like that. I am a maiden still. You dishonor me with the liberties you take.”

“Dishonor?” He chortled out a derisive laugh. “You’re a bastard, my lady. You don’t have honor to begin with.”

“ _. . . danced and spun, all the way to the fair! _

_ The Fair! The Fair! _ ”

_ Why’s he saying this? Why’s he doing this to me?  _ A bad feeling was starting to take over her. If Harry still cared one whit about marrying her, he wouldn’t say such things. This was just like the first time they met. When he insulted her for being a bastard. Foolishly, she thought he had warmed up to her and didn’t think such thoughts about her. She thought he was charmed by her and drawn to her. 

A coldness was slowly gripping her. 

“Why are you saying this?” She asked in a low voice, glaring at him. She wanted to slap that disgusting grin off his face.

“Come now, Alayne,” Harry said, voice dripping with derision. “Did you really think I was going to marry you? I am to be Lord of the Vale and you are a bastard. You and me were never going to be, except perhaps in bed a few times.”

_ “...kicked and wailed,  _

_ The maid so fair, _

_ But he licked the honey from her hair...” _

At his last words, his half-lidded gaze went straight to her cleavage. It was a lecherous look at worst. At best, it was a rejection of everything she was except her body. 

_ They want me for all the wrong reasons,  _ She thought, pitying herself. She had fooled herself into believing that Harry Hardyng would be different. She would give him babes and a claim to the North and he could give her happiness. But he would do the opposite. 

It was all just songs and dreams, again, wasn’t it?

Had she once again fallen into the fancy that this place was any better, any rosier than King’s Landing? 

“I see,” she said, with ice in her veins and steel in her voice. The distinct difference in tone was noted and weighed in his azure eyes. She gritted her teeth. “Then, I guess, what we had is done.”

Whipping around, she made to go but he caught her wrist and yanked her to him. Her back slammed into his chest and his lips traced her ears, making her breath hitch.

“Come now, my lady. It’s nothing to be wroth about.” He whispered into her ear with a smile in his voice. “Besides,” He bit the corner of her earlobe and pressed his front to her back completely, letting her absorb the hardness of him pushing against her rear. “We both know you aren’t a maiden at all.”

_ “Her hair! Her hair! _

_ Licked the honey from her hair!” _

Her pulse exploded in her chest and her feet, for the life of her, couldn’t move. Panic reached her with icy-cold claws and filled her with dumbstruck clarity. She stood rooted in his arms as he took his liberties, pushing into her arse in the most vulgar manner. His hand came up and folded over her breast, cupping it in his palm firmly.

“N-No,” the denial stuttered out of her dry tongue as she tried to grab a semblance of control or composure in this undeniably unpleasant situation. 

“Why do you deny it? You know that I don’t care.” Harry hummed as his other hand traveled down until he was grabbing one of her cheeks through the dress. She gasped while he said: “You keep playing coy with me but I know how many you’ve fucked before me.”

“No!” leapt out amidst the humdrum of her own confusion and the singer’s voice that was still warbling out of the door. Amidst the roar of her heartbeat and the path Harry’s fingers were taking through her rear end, she found the anger burning underneath “No, I haven’t. I don’t know what you keep talking about. Just-- just let me go!”

She tried to push his hands off of her as well as wrench herself out of his arms and in doing so, she stumbled forward into the wall with her hands grasping at the rough stone for support. The rough stones were angled in such a way that they pricked her fingers and she whimpered with tears welling in her eyes.

_ Why? Why does this always happen to me? _

_ “...she sighed, she squealed, and kicked into the air. _

_ My bear! She sang. My fair bear!” _

She heard footsteps. Near her boots, Harry’s shadow approached her and then halted on its way.

“I can see that you’re in no mood for me right now,” He said, his haughty tone pricking her like needles in the back of her head. It infuriated her. It hurt her. “No matter. Your friend, Myranda, seemed pretty keen on me. Mayhaps, I will bed her while you make up your mind about whether you’ll live with the truth or the lie.”

A block of fury seized her by the throat and the next that her voice came out, it was gravelly and crack-pated. “I hate you,” She said. “I will never, ever, ever marry you.”

Harry snorted behind her. “It isn’t your choice,” He said. “It’s your Father’s.” 

And just like that, he left through the door back to the Hall.

Gods, it hurt. Somehow, she had let herself believe he could be the husband she would finally want, but how could she have been so stupid?

Where in the seven hells did he get the idea that she was not a maiden? Was it the way she flirted with him? Was it Myranda? 

_ I’m such an idiot.  _ She sobbed quietly to herself, squeezing her eyes tight as tears fell and fell.  _ Didn’t Petyr remind me a hundred times to be cautious with the people around me? And there I was, foolishly believing Myranda to be a friend to me. She’s no friend. She betrayed me. _

For a long time, she stayed there, her forehead pressed to the spiky wall and vibrating within her the end of a song and laughter-- merry cheer that she was no longer a part of. Then, she straightened, sniffing back the sadness splattering off of her. She collected herself as best as she could, wiped at her cheeks and trod off in a hurry. She took a turn to her left and threaded her way through the dimly-lit hallway, her boots clapping on the stony floor. The night was chilly still and she had left her cloak behind. She crossed her arms across her chest, rubbing at her limbs to brew some warmth, but there was no warmth to be found.

_ I deserved this.  _ More tears pricked her vision at the thought and she decided she wouldn’t think of it anymore. Not in the way that made her emotionally unstable. She had cried too many tears for her follies.

Seeing three men hunched over in a talk in front of her, essentially blocking her path, she paused on her way. She thought about turning back and taking the long way to the tents but that would be too craven. And right now, with what happened with Harry, Sansa had no desire for fleeing. Better to just wipe off the errant tears and walk past their watchful gazes with her head down.

“Pardon me, sers,” She said quietly, drawing closer to them and cutting a path to their far right so in the dark and with her head bowed, they wouldn’t see her red-tinged eyes or the distress on her face that she couldn’t quite remove from her face. 

“Ah, if it isn’t Lady Alayne,” said one of the men she recognized as Ser Shadrich. She looked up to see that his fox-like face was pinched in a combination of a smile and grimace.

“Ser Shadrich,” She greeted him amiably enough despite her urge to flee. His casual gaze on her seemed to encroach on personal territory when he searched her face for… something. She winced and backed a step in caution, but he’d seen enough already. “My word, Lady, are you doing well?”

She was surprised by the touch of concern in his voice. “Yes, of course, ser.” She said and tried to walk around him once again. “Please, pardon me.”

A hand gripped her elbow though and she flinched before staring at Shadrich’s knowing eyes. His unoccupied hand reached for her chin and raised it, swiping with his thumb at a little tear that had crept out of her eyes despite all the ice she had fed it.

“Let me go,” She ordered, shaking off his touch and he immediately relented, but his eyes were sharp upon her, keenly seeing through any mask she was able to put on.

“I apologize, my Lady,” He said, a wisdom deep within his eyes. “But you look sad. Is everything okay?”

She pressed her lips together. “Yes,” She nodded with resolve. At the spark of defiance that raised itself to meet his eyes, Shadrich seemed to understand and reluctantly accept her departure this time.

  
  
  


“You were wrong,” She said to Petyr the minute she entered his tent. The man was sitting on a chaise, swirling his wine glass and sipping from it on occasion. He made a noise as she arrived on the rim of the glass, gulping down a small finger of amber liquid and putting down his glass to the side with a thump.

“Oh?” He asked, standing up. “That’s a first,”

She wanted to snap at him that yes, of course, he was wrong. He had told her that Harry would fall for her easy charms and her bountiful beauty but that hadn’t been what happened at all. Harry was unconcerned about her feelings. He didn’t even want to marry her. Didn’t even waste time picking another woman to fuck when she refused his advances.

While she barely had any feelings for  _ Harry The Ass _ , he was still a handsome man and for such a man to reject her-- it stung her pride. Though she knew it shouldn’t. She knew here that ego had no part to play here. Harry had tried to force himself on her. He had believed some whore’s gossip and insulted her to her face. He had tried to touch the most private part of her in public where anybody could see.

“Harry doesn’t love me and is probably never going to marry me,” She said, trying to bury her irritation down but it carried through in the tiniest inflections of her voice. “Now that he’s sure that he’s to be Lord of the Eyrie, he thinks he’s above it all. He touched me inappropriately and when I told him not to, he ignored me and spouted out some lies about me to feel justified in what he was doing. He’s just going to become more arrogant as time goes on, I know it.”

“Well, brash, young man like him can hardly see the worth behind a bastard girl,” Littlefinger pointed out with a smile. “Give him time. He’ll become more accommodating to you once you are wed.”

She glared at him, hating the twinkle of amusement in his eyes. How had she even entertained the notion that he could be her father? If it were Eddard Stark she was complaining to about her betrothed touching her without consent, he would have torn out Harry’s tongue. He would have done anything for his little girl and her happiness. By the Gods, she missed Father with a twinge of pain in her chest that kept growing and growing until there was a massive hole where her heart should be. She felt the hollowness of it deep in her bones.

“I know what you’re thinking,” She began. “You’re planning to tell him that I’m Sansa Stark of Winterfell to have him marry me but I’m not sure I want to marry him now. He’s an insufferable ass.”

“Now, now,” Littlefinger walked to her while making that silly, condescending shushing noise. She gritted her teeth as he gathered her cheeks between his hands and gave her a patronizing look. “I’ve never known my little girl to throw a tantrum and this is a tantrum, Alayne.” He reminded her in a stern tone that had her hackles rising. “I thought I told you those have no place here. Not with the position we’re in and not with the game we play.”

He wasn’t assuring her like he did the last time she came to him complaining about Harry. No, in his own tricky way, he was warning her to keep quiet. He was telling her that the walls had eyes and ears. That she couldn’t be a helpless whiny girl who didn’t know how to lie here. She had to be Alayne. She had to be sober and obedient and a bastard girl with no rights to righteous anger. Not here.

“Patience, sweet one,” Petyr whispered in her ear, just like Harry had done. She twitched under his hands. “Endure his little moments of arrogance. Restrain yourself and let things run their natural course. Everything is going according to plan and we don’t want to mess that up, do we? You win the game by playing along no matter what your real feelings tell you to say or do.”

_ But I don’t want to win the game!  _ The voice inside her snarled now, wanting to be let out of her rib-cage. She closed her eyes and felt this hunger within her, something she had pushed down for a long while but it rushed into her like a tide.  _ For that matter, I don’t want to marry anyone who only wants me for my claim. No. No more. I won’t fantasize about the life I could have if I just imagined. No! I want to go home.  _ This hunger reached beneath skin-- breaching blood and bone-- a hunger that would devour everything and everyone around her if it meant she could go home. It was an ache that writhed in her veins, growing as tall and strong as a direwolf with every minute that she stood there in Baelish’s cage-like arms.

She shuddered out an exhale and nodded. 

“Yes,” she said, pulling herself together. At least, for this one last moment.

“I understand,” she said once again, keeping her head bent low. 

Petyr pulled away from her with a pleased smile and she detached herself, pulling a facade that would most protect her. One of understanding and contentment. While inside, all she wanted to do was wreck his strange little elegance, batter down his poise and composure with her nails. Scratch him to pieces. 

Alas, he was a little too big for her. A tad bit too powerful.

_ Jon’s powerful, though. He’s the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. He can keep me safe. _

As the thought came to her, she simpered at Baelish with her eyes softened and nodded at the right places as he talked and talked. As natural as she could be. Once, they said their goodbyes, she slipped out of his tent and didn’t head back to her own tent. 

She had made her decision. 

Petyr Baelish was what he was: tale-spinner, murderer, manipulator. A selfish ass. She wanted nothing to do with him when the world crashed down around his feet. And it would. She would make sure of that.

  
  


* * *

 

She asked the guard outside Yohn Royce’s solar for entry, but  the startled and flustered guard spluttered out a “The lord is turning in for the night, my lady” into her sweet smile. She leaned closer and lowered her voice into a sweet hum.

“Please,” She implored, widening her cerulean eyes and biting her rosy-soft bottom lip. “I promise I won’t be a bother to him. I only have something very important to tell him. Something he has to hear tonight. You understand, don’t you?”

She was implying something entirely too suggestive for the guard to grasp with his measly brain and he was still sputtering out rambling excuses when Andar Royce exited the tent.

“What is going on here?” He demanded. Sansa almost gasped. It was a surprise to see him here. Like his father, he was a tall, barrel-chested man with a long beard and he towered over her in not quite the menacing way but something threatening at the very least.

She bowed her head in front of him. “Apologies, Lord Andar Royce. I only had a few things to impart to your father if he wasn’t busy.”

“And what would that be, Lady Alayne?” He asked gruffly, eyeing her with reservation.

She looked around the empty fields and leaned into him conspiratorially. “I’m afraid I can’t say these things out in the open, my lord, but I promise you, you’ll want to hear this. Or at least,” She amended. “Your father will.”

He studied her, a grimace on his face. Then, a voice from inside the tent came to him and he nodded at her. “Come on in, then.”

  
  
  
  


She told Yohn Royce and his son everything she knew. About Petyr Baelish’s few transgressions that she had heard with her own ears or that she had seen. About her true identity and why she hid it so long even when she was away from King’s Landing. About the lies she told for Petyr and why she did. About the half-cooked plans Littlefinger had shared with her. About anything that could invite their sympathy-- whether it was the covetous way Petyr kissed her-- whether it was the lack of choice she had or the fear she felt for her circumstances if she didn’t do what she was supposed to. 

When she finished, there was a pause that felt endless and choking with the suffocating hope that binded her throat. With her fingers laced in front of her, she bowed her head and waited stiffly for a judgment.

“Why? Why are you telling us this now?” demanded Andar, looking wroth, furrows around his brows. 

“Andar,” Yohn warned his son.

“Are you really willing to listen to her-- she lied about Lady Lysa’s death!”

“It was what she had to do,”

“No! We wouldn’t have blamed her if she had just come out and told us the truth,” Andar said and jabbed at her. “But she lied! Over and over again. All this pretence of hers to be his daughter just helped him more!”

“Well, she’s telling the truth now,” said Yohn Royce, standing up now. He looked at Sansa, who was trembling with the fear Andar’s shouting had marked in her. “It is good that you came to us, no matter how late Andar believes it to be.” He moved toward her and she felt the unsteady pounding of her heart double. It drowned everything, even her courage and determination. 

Tears stung her eyes and dripped over her lashes, casting its long limbs down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” She sobbed out. “I-I-I just had too many fears and too little courage. I was hiding behind the only person I knew but I should’ve tried to trust you-- I just-- I couldn’t move-- not after all that had happened.”

“That’s okay,” said Yohn Royce, a worry beneath his measuring stare. “You’re safe now. We’ll keep you safe.”

She didn’t believe him, but she had to go along with this or go back and join forces with the perverse, corrupt evil that was always trying to control her every breath. Being under that snake’s snare hadn’t felt wrong but slowly, it had been infecting her with his own version of venom. Her thoughts had started to take the same route as his tended to. It jarred her.

She didn’t want to be like him. 

She wanted to be clever, but not at the sacrifice of her own soul. She wanted to survive, but not so she could give up on the part of her that was always Stark. 

And she feared if she had stayed with Littlefinger any longer, she would.

  
  
  
  


Yohn Royce wanted her to testify against Petyr Baelish for the guilt of conspiring to kill Jon Arryn and for murdering Lysa Arryn. And under her true identity.

“But if I do, the Queen will send her dogs to come get me.” Sansa told the older man of her apprehension. “I’ll do it. I want to. But you don’t know Littlefinger. He’s as slippery as a snake. He won’t be charged without evidence and all you’ll have will be my word against his.”

Her words fell on deaf ears, of course. She expected that. The next day, as she came out of her tent from a long, restless sleep, there was an uproar around the fields. People were screaming. Some were running. Some were crying. There was a woman in the middle of the snow-laden field who was hitting her head over and over again.

“What has happened?” she asked one of Yohn Royce’s guards who had been guarding her tent.

“Lord Harry-- he and the other Lord Declarants went to arrest Petyr Baelish in his tent today but he was gone, with all his possessions. He took some money out of our coffers too.” The guard told her. “And there were four bodies left behind-- it was the few men Bronze Royce assigned to guard Baelish’s tent yesterday.”

No. This wasn’t how she wanted this to go. She had been foolish enough to think Baelish wouldn’t have caught a whiff of her defiance.  _ His men are everywhere _ , she remembered. One of them must have seen her go into Yohn Royce’s tent or maybe, when the Lord of Runestone went to converse with Harry privately in the Falcon Tower.

Either way, Petyr being out there, with his scheming mind and all his possessions-- it was an omen if she ever knew one. Somehow, she had thought that with so much to lose, Petyr would stick here. Maybe, he knew he had no chance of redemption here anymore, though. Not with Sansa willing to confess against all his follies.

He wouldn’t have foreseen her betraying him so running away would seem like a good idea. But still. Where would he run off? Did he take a ship? When did he leave? It had only been a night but by all the Gods, the man was fast when he needed to be.

_ I need to get out of here.  _ The thought came unbidden to her and it took everything in her not to just rush out into the open sea on her own. 

No, she needed help.

But Yohn Royce would be preoccupied. He wouldn’t listen to her. He would be busy trying to catch Petyr before he was out of sight. Gods, what was she doing here? She hurried to her tent, knowing that she had to pack up now, but as she turned, somebody bumped into her.

“Ah, apologies,” said a familiar voice. She looked up to see Ser Shadrich smiling down at her. Two men flanked his side, gazing down at her like she was a target-- a prize.

Eyes widening, she recalled that him and the other two with him had come with Petyr. She recalled that they had sworn their allegiance to him.

She opened her mouth to cry out: “No--” A hand blocked up the high-pitched noise, covering her mouth and nose. A dirt and moss smell permeated from the hand and heart tripping, she tried to struggle away but one of the men with Shadrich grabbed her around the arms and tied her hands back.

“Very sorry about this, Lady Sansa,” said the man as he binded her arm with some rope. A chill expanded her lungs and made breathing hard. 

_ No. No. No. NO. _

She kicked at Shadrich but her skirts got in her way and made that an ineffectual move. Suddenly, she was being moved away. She groaned under the hand still around her, jerking her head back and forth, trying to get away, trying to scream for help. But there was such uproar in the field already that nobody heard her muffled groans.

“She’s not gonna shut up, you know.” said Ser Byron, the third man. He had a tiny, clear-glass bottle in his hand that he was offering to the orange-haired hedge knight. 

“I know,” Shadrich said, giving her an unreadable, wary look. Her stomach twisted in her belly. She had a bad feeling about this. “Well, do it then.” He said as he pulled his hands off of Sansa’s lips and as she breathed in, bracing herself to shout out, milky liquid was falling into the inside of her mouth. A hand cupped her chin, keeping her mouth slack even as she tried to grit her teeth. To spit it out. Anything. 

“There you go,” murmured Byron into her ear as she gurgled back the potion, twitching and straining in Mogarth’s arms. “There’s a lad,”

Muscles tensing, she tried to yank her head back or kick away at the men who had her so at their mercy but she barely had any strength to resist and as the Milk of the Poppy started taking effect, even that strength waned.

“You’d look rather good in red hair, my lady,” said Shadrich with a smile as black spotted her vision. She watched with half-lidded eyes as he picked up a strand of her deep-brown hair and stroked it. “It’s said to be kissed by hair,” He whispered, his voice echoing in her ear as she closed her eyes and passed out for good.


	2. drifting aimlessly in the lone sea

###  _ Jon _

 

Jon was alive.

Well, not really. He was a ghost. Lurking still, sniffing at the roots of a tree, chasing some game through the flurry of snow and the heady breeze. There was a hunger in him. To eat. To guzzle down blood and meat with greedy claws and sharp fangs. He was a predator here. One that trodded silently, quietly, unnoticeably.

_ They killed me.  _ He recalled though he was trying to forget.  _ My own men killed me. _

Ghost let loose a whimper at that, feeling his pain, feeling his rage and his sorrow all mixed together in a giant mess. Jon was trying to lock away those feelings-- forget they ever existed-- but it was hard to do so. Especially, when he could hear the men talk. While Ghost’s ear could hardly decipher the voices and find meaning in them, Jon could. Only partly, but still, it ruffled his furs. Made him straighten on his haunches and perk his ears. 

“-- _ killing the Lord Commander _ \--” someone was hissing. Someone with red hair and a red beard-- a bear of a man-- large and heavy.  _ Strong _ , Ghost instinctively decided.  _ Tormund _ , Jon thought with a twinge of pain in his gut. “-- _ Do you have any idea what you’ve done!? _ ”

“-- _ take charge of this from now on _ ,” said someone else and this one-- this one’s voice hurt something awful to hear. The gravity of it. The audacity of it! Ghost growled out aloud. The man stopped and eyed Ghost with clinical eyes. “ _ Why hasn’t anyone put this creature down yet _ ?”

_ Run. _ Jon told Ghost-- told his own limbs and suddenly, he was turning away, sprinting into the dark woods, far away from the cacophony of voices that reminded him too much of--

_ For the Watch _ , they had said. They thought killing him was good for the Watch! He wanted to laugh at that. Did they really think anything that he had done in the past few months was for himself?! He had denied himself Winterfell! He had-- his head hurt just trying to remember the memories of when he was alive. 

It was a muddling mess in his brain. Ghost couldn’t quite retain everything that was in Jon’s head and so some things just slipped off like a whisper in the harsh wind. His tumultuous thoughts had no place in the head of his direwolf. No, this creature he was inside had different priorities. It wanted to run and lunge and devour. 

It didn’t live like Jon. It didn’t have an iota of self-control or self-recrimination. It didn’t think half the weight of the world was on its shoulders. It was wild. It was free from responsibilities and obligations. It howled at the moon just because it wanted to. It leapt through crusted snows and ridges, because it felt like it. 

And Jon loved every minute of it.

  
  


As each day passed, Jon slowly stopped remembering and feeling past slights. The only thing that existed within him was the wolf and the wolf wanted to hunt and consume everything in its path. No thought of time was there to unnecessarily irk him. No space existed outside of the hunt as he followed delicious scents off to his unfortunate, oblivious preys.

His prey would always yelp, flail and rush to escape but in a swift pounce, he would seize the animal flesh under his big claws and attack it with sharp fangs. The prey would jolt, try to bash him off, but once he had his prey underneath him, there was no way he would let go. There was a carnal pleasure to this. To hear the crunch of bones as he chewed viciously, keeping his paws on the prey’s resisting neck. To ingest and swallow those mangled pieces of meat and blood that came with each bite and know without a doubt, with a thrill reaching to the very tips of his feet that he had won this game.

Sometimes, he imagined other people-- people who had wronged him in another life-- instead of a raven or a sick horse or a mouse, even.

And when he did, he chewed even harder. 

It was as he was doing just this that there was a pull in the pit of his stomach where the warmth of his kill resided. Jon hopped off his half-eaten and gouged his claws into the snow-slicked ground to stand his ground against it. The pull was strong though and it kept amplifying. He resisted as best as he could, gritting his jaw and growling at this invisible enemy that was calling him with such unerring volition. As if they had a right to call him! 

But Ghost’s defiant snarl melted into a whimper when with the pull came an unspeakable agony that ripped at his insides. Piece by piece. Organ by organ, just yanking them apart with no regard to him. A persistent jabbing that stole his breath. Made it hard to stand up to this unnamed enemy floating in the air.

He felt like wailing. Like dying once again. It hurt. Oh Gods, it hurt so much that the echo of his last memory assailed him... ensnaring him…  _ trapping _ him.

There was a hollow ache where his head resided and pricks of stabbing pain all over his chest and torso-- all the places their knives had gouged into him. Feeling what his body felt in those last moments before darkness came to embrace him-- vividly, with such tangible clarity that it  _ scared _ him,

Ghost rumbled deep in his throat, hair standing up and muzzle down as if he were bracing himself for a foe in the forest but this was no enemy-- no, this was… 

Jon’s connection to Ghost was chopped with an abruptness that cut. Like Tormund’s pick-axe had cleaved apart the rope that linked him to Ghost.

It came in waves then; the living,  _ breathing _ feeling in his body. The blood flowing back in his veins, the heartbeat that was hammering up and down beneath his ribcage, his vision that slowly replaced grey darkness with warm colors again, and his ears that picked out the crackling of kindling fire and the soft voice that whispered chants in a foreign language.

He sat up, gasping in half-panted breaths as he took in the room around him. Once he took the whole spectre of his surroundings, he came to a stop at the center of the room. There, the red-haired witch in her scarlet dress sat on a stool by the fire hearth, peering into the flames.

_ No.  _ He thought, knowing with painful clarity what had happened to him and partially the why of it too.  _ No. No. No.  _ All he saw was red.

_ I’m alive.  _ Anger rushed into his system and encompassed all the space inside his chest, choking him with the indignity of it. Made it hard to see anything else through that blur. Made it hard to breathe evenly. The only thought he could focus on-- the only feeling he could get behind was the wrath that suffocated him like a massive pyre sizzling in his gut. The despair he couldn’t deal with. The fear he couldn’t tolerate right this second. He had been a wolf! He had no care for human concerns. For the way his life ended and all the hurt he had suffered in that other life, he had forgotten them all. 

He cared not one whit!

The flame-haired witch must have heard his heavy breathing for she shifted to the side and eyed him. A pregnant pause before a look of pure shock covered her face. Her mouth dropped open.

“Oh,” She said simply. “It worked,”

An inhuman roar ripped out of his throat at the relief in her voice and toppled out of the table where they had laid him. He almost dropped to the ground on the first step-- his legs seemed to have lost all strength while he’d been dead-- but his hands latched onto the table for support. Melisandre stood up, looking frightened for once as with miserable little groans slipping out of his tongue, he tottered over to her.

“You shouldn’t strain yourself--” Melisandre was saying but Jon’s paw found her ruby-crusted neck before she could finish and she wheezed out: “--Ack!” 

He tightened his grip around her neck, crushing the chains of her choker on her alabaster skin. She gasped, her eyes rolling back on her head and her hands leaping up to scratch at his knuckles. He clenched his teeth as she struggled, feet kicking away at his bare feet. It was only then that he realized that he was naked, from the neck down. It was a strange feeling, but he did not feel any shame nor did he feel disturbed by the detail.

The vengeance that thudded a ringing pulse in his ear was all that he breathed in and out. All that existed. He was going to devour her. With his own teeth. Mash her bones and flesh into nothing. He was going to  _ eat her _ .

“St...op,” hacked out The Red Woman.

There was a thud as a door pushed open behind him.

“Wha--” said a man’s voice, disbelief marring his speech but as soon as he saw what Jon was doing, he raced over to cuff Jon on the head. The blow hardly hurt but his grip loosened on her as the reality of his situation slowly reasserted itself back to him. 

The man behind him grunted as he snagged both of Jon’s arms back and yanked him to step back, away from the sorceress.

“You’re killing her!” He hissed into Jon’s ear. “Stop!”

And Jon finally let go, collapsing until his knees touched the floor. Melisandre folded in front of him as well, touching her bruised throat and staring at him warily. He panted a staccato rhythm, looking first at his calloused, scarred hands and then tracing the scar disfiguring his chest closest to his line of sight. There was a distinct crack in-between-- no sign of healing-- just a hollow streak of black lining the surface of his moon-like skin. 

“Are you okay, my lady?” asked the man from before, kneeling next to her, one hand on her shoulder. There was a noise of running footsteps right outside the room and questions on worried tongues as more people rushed into the room.

“What happened?” one of the newcomers demanded.

“What in the Seven Hells--” cursed another.

“Lord Commander?” asked the third.

Jon, clenching his fists at his side, turned to eye the one who called him by the title that wasn't his anymore. It was Mully. One of the black brothers. One of his own.  _ His _ men.

“Did you stab me too, Mully?” Jon asked in what he thought was a pretty comical tone but it came out dull and surly like what the rest of him felt like.

Mully gaped at him. “Uh,” He stammered out. “You’re alive,”

“Aye,” Jon accepted. Yes. He was alive. He wanted to turn around to glare at Melisandre but he feared if he looked at her again, he would kill her, guards or not. “Though somebody forgot to ask me if I wanted to be.” 

“Oh, Lord Commander! You have no idea how glad I am that you’re alive!” Mully exclaimed, almost running up to hug him but stopped at the look he gave. He felt cold-- on the outside because he was still very much naked and on the inside too because he was dead inside.

He almost wanted to laugh at this ironic, unfortunate bit of luck Fate had thrown his way. He hadn't asked for this. He didn't want it.

“Mully, I died. Why am I alive?” He asked in a dead, raspy voice.

Mully looked at the man by his side for help, who Jon recognized to be Ser Narbert, one of Queen Selyse’s men. The Southern Knight shrugged with his arms crossed, looking anywhere but into Jon’s eyes. He looked unsettled. As he should be. 

“Lady Melisandre thought she could bring you back if she had possession of your body.” Devan Seaworth explained, looking sheepish and nervous when Jon’s sharp gaze went straight to him. He had been the one to pull Jon off of Melisandre. “Queen Selyse told her knights to get your body and they did. We put you up here, in Melisandre’s room, so she could work on you. None of us believed you’d come back. But we-- Queen Selyse and the rest-- wanted to let her try, at least .”

“The castle’s in uproar, Lord Commander.” Mully interjected, stepping forward, urgency in his tone. “It was only when-- when you were killed--” He winced at that. “--it seemed everything just fell apart.”

“Did it?” He asked, feeling nothing- feeling absolutely nothing. A void had replaced his heart.

“Tormund and his wildings and some of the Watch’s men got into a right big tiff with Marsh and his like right outside after-- If looks could kill...” Mully said.

“Was it Marsh?” Jon asked in a whisper-soft voice. He remembered tear-stricken eyes and a dagger punched into his gut. Devan, Mully, Ser Benethon and Ser Narbert looked at him curiously, with wariness around the edges of their eyes.  _ Mayhaps, I shouldn’t act like this. They may get scared. But…  _ “Did he kill me?”

Mully looked guilty for a moment and Jon had the horrible thought that he might have been one of knives that went into him. He remembered Wick Whittlestick clearly. That had been the first slash. Not the last one though. There had been four, at least. Before he lost consciousness, there had been four who had killed him. There may have been more. It may have been Mully, but why would he be here if he was?

“Yes, Lord Commander,” Mully finally said, the shame revealing on his face. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to protect you.”

Jon shook his head, remembering some more details about that night. “No, you weren’t even there. What could you have done?”

Mully grimaced. “Horse and Rory told me that with the Giant and Queen Selyse’s men looking to kill him in retribution and Leather trying to calm down Wun Wun, they lost sight of you in the crowd and that’s when--” He exhaled. “--when they killed you.”

“I see,” Jon knew that already. It was first thing and the last thing he would think about when he fell asleep, he knew instinctively. A thought hit him then. He looked up in alarm and asked: “Did they kill Wun Wun?”

Mully looked confused by his concern but shook his head. “No. He’s okay. Still in Hardin’s Tower, guarding Princess Val.”

“Oh,”  _ So the world goes on without me. _

“They want her to leave the tower, though. Your men.” Ser Narbert said. “Come to think of it, I bet they want us to leave too..”

“ _ Not my men _ ,” Jon gritted out, aggravation creasing his forehead.

Narbert ignored him. “They talk to us politely enough but there’s a threat lurking in their words. I figure they won’t wait a long time before we’re literally kicked out on our asses.”

Benethon snorted. “After all we have done for the Night’s Watch. This is how they choose to repay us. You better do something about your--”

Jon banged his fist on the floor and shouted: “They’re not my men!” Anger sparked his limbs, turning him hot from the inside-out. “I was dead. I died because they thought it better to kill the Lord Commander than to follow his commands. Because I was traitor to them, inviting wildings and a King from the South to come and eat with the rest of us. I was dead!” He looked up at their startled eyes and snarled out: “My oath-- it no longer matters.”

“But--” Ser Narbert protested.

Jon stood up and with a no-nonsense voice that brooked no argument, he ordered them: “I need you all to leave,” 

“This is Lady Melisandre’s chamb--” Devan went to argue.

He pierced Devan with his narrowed glare and the poor boy flinched. “Leave,” He burst out.

“It’s okay,” Melisandre told the boy, touching his arm. Jon didn’t look directly at her. He was still not sure if he would kill her or spare her. He was still leaning pretty heavily on the killing part. “Let him have some rest and some time to think through things. I’m sure this isn’t easy for him.”

He bared his teeth in her direction. He didn’t need her sympathy nor did he need her speaking for him. She only shrugged a shoulder at him with waves of her auburn hair falling back too. If he looked closely, he noticed the imprint of her choker’s limbs at her throat, little circles of mottled flesh. He swallowed, the blood-thirsty part of him relishing in the fact. 

“Well,” Ser Narbert cleared his throat. “Guess we do have to tell Queen Selyse and the rest about the good news. I’m sure they’ll be happy to know you’re alive.”

Jon gave them his back as he braced his hands on the table in front of him and listened to them slowly take their leave. The door closed behind the last set of footsteps and then, Jon was alone with his terrible thoughts and the dark place where his heart was supposed to be. 

  
  


As Ser Narbert had said, Tormund and some of the Night Watch’s men were happy to see him. The ones that weren’t-- well, they were in the cells. 

“As soon as we got word that you were alive, I rallied the men and took the traitors out one-by-one and locked them up.” The large man huffed out, laughing boisterously. They were in the common hall and Jon sat beside him with a wineskin in his hand and a plate of beets in front of him. Clydas had told him to eat a little, get his strength up, but there was emptiness in the pit of his stomach and he didn’t think eating could fill it up. No matter how much he wished it did. “I would’ve done it sooner, we outnumbered them five to one but you being dead and all, it confused some of us. Felt like we lost direction. Har! There were plenty of crows who were willing to side with us but none had the potential for leading us against their own brethren. And the ones who might’ve, well, they’re off on their own little missions, I’m sure.

“But now that you’re alive,” Tormund shouted, thumping Jon’s back with a hard hand. “Things seem to be right on track, don’t they?”

Jon’s gaze dipped to the wooden table, not answering Tormund back. What could he say? That his will had died with him and it hadn’t come back yet. He wasn’t even sure it would ever come back. He felt listless and lost, like a drifting boat out in the sea. Like a man out in the storm with no home to his name. No cause to burn his heart and drive him onward. 

What was he fighting for anymore? He didn’t feel like fighting for the Night’s Watch. Even though a part of him felt a twinge of concern for Tormund and Edd and Satin and Val. They were good people. They didn’t deserve a half-dead man as their leader. 

A shadow fell across the table as the bench creaked and someone sat across from them. It was Val. She looked over at him with narrowed eyes, considering him.

“You’re looking a little grey there, Lord Snow.” She observed. She still looked as radiant as ever.

“He did die and come back to life,” Toregg the Tall pointed out offhandedly from Jon’s other side as he chewed on his food. “I suppose that changes the pallor, doesn’t it?”

Val gave him a look and a small smile. “I wouldn’t know. The only people who’ve died and come back in front of my eyes have been wights. They don’t quite act like Lord Snow though.”

“Yeah? I bet,” Brogg guffawed from two seats over. “He’s more surly than a wight, I wager.”

The whole table of former wildings and a few of the Watch’s men burst into laughter around him.

_ Well _ , Jon thought,  _ at least, somebody is finding this situation humorous. _

“Har! Don’t worry your pretty little head too much, Snow.” Tormund said, again thumping his back. Jon couldn’t bother to tell him it hurt a little. He was too relieved by the sensation of pain. He’d been under the impression that he would be numb to such things now. But maybe, he wasn’t half as dead as he’d thought he was. 

“We’ll figure things out. Bit by bit.” Tormund was saying just as Jon was finding a smile curling at the tips of his lips. “But first, you’ve gotta decide what to do with those traitor crows.”

His blooming smile died a quick death right there. The reminder of those men and their fate was like the four and more knives were plunged right back into his body-- like he was submerged in icy cold water, the depths of which went on for miles and miles.

His anger was a simmering pot, a kindling fire hearth and it burned in his gut. At least, in this, he was capable. At least, here, he knew exactly what to do.

  
  
  


It was good to have Longclaw back in his grasp. With its pointy end thrust into the snow-slicked earth, he centered himself with his fingers clutching around the hilt. With his eyes closed, he didn’t pray to the Gods. Instead, he thought back to the old days. He thought of Summer and Winterfell together-- of Bran climbing up the walls and his mother scolding him. Arya running out into the field with a steel sword raised up high in the air while Jory chased her, telling her to put it down before she hurt herself. Rickon demanding to know everything and anything with a curious tilt of his little baby head. Robb laughing as Jon choked on his first try at drinking down ale straight from the wineskin. And Sansa screaming in a scandalous rage, tears brimming in her eyes because of something silly like her dress had become a mess.

He thought of Father. Grave and serious, Lord Eddard Stark, with his Valyrian sword, Ice. His longsword facing down, his jaw a closed set and resolve shining in his eyes as he opened them after a prayer to the Old Gods. The sureness in the swing of his sword, the strength in the first and only slash that cut through the faceless criminal’s head.

“The man who passes the sentence,” Jon repeated under his breath, reliving a memory from long ago. Long ago, when he still felt so alive. Long ago, when he was home, with his family.  _ Arya’s with the Bolton Bastard.  _ The thought came unbidden, setting him on edge. How many days had passed since that letter? How many days since he died? An urgency started up beneath his skin, riling him up, intensifying his rage.

_ These men _ . He looked at each of them bent over with their hands tied behind their back on the dais. Bowen Marsh, Othell Yarwyk, Wick Whittlestick, Left Hand Lew and Alf of Runnymudd looked back at him with defiance in their eyes.  _ These men stopped me from going to my sister. I was finally leaving them be. I was finally going back home. And they stabbed me before I could. They took away my will. They took away the reason I live and breathe. I can’t forgive them. They deserve this death. You’d agree too, wouldn’t you, Father? _

There was fear in some men’s eyes-- that was the thing that made his sword waver. Wick was outright weeping, begging for mercy. Alf of Runnymudd was insisting he didn’t do anything.

“I didn’t do anything! I swear, my Lord-- Lord Commander, please, I’ll do anything. Please don’t.” Alf was crying out. 

Jon looked behind him to see Edd Tollett was standing amongst the crowd that had gathered to watch the execution. His solemn face amongst a sea of strangers and acquaintances made the tight string around his throat ease. He nodded at the man. Edd nodded back.

Then, Jon told Mully and Fulk to hold Marsh’s head down and he swung the sword.

  
  


“I’ve made my decision,” Jon told Tormund as he packed up his clothes. 

“I thought you changed your mind after--” Tormund said, waving Jon’s death off like it was a fly in the wind. “--Har! I guess I understand why. If it were one of my kin, I reckon I’d rush to their rescue like a bat out of hell too.”

Jon stopped and smiled at him. “Thank you, for being willing to go to Hardhome without me”

Tormund shrugged. “I would’ve gone sooner but your death--”

“--disrupted you, yes, I know. You’ve told me that a thousand times.” Jon said as he resumed stuffing his bag with doublets, jerkins and trousers. The cloaks he would leave on himself. There wasn’t enough space for that inside. “Apparently, my death seems to be the biggest recurring joke of the century.”

“Joke? No, I was deeply unsettled, Lord Snow,” Tormund said with a cackle. Jon rolled his eyes, but he believed Tormund’s words. The man didn’t have a dishonest bone in his body. 

“Then, I wish you luck,” He stepped toward Tormund and offered him a hand. Tormund gripped his elbow firmly and smirked.

“Best wishes to you as well. And may we meet again.”

Jon nodded with a tight smile as Tormund took his leave out of his solar. He didn’t believe either of them would survive this, but he had to try. Besides, he had lost the will to live so why not go out in a big, fiery flame? Why not get consumed by his inner wrath and turn it in kind to the Bastard of Bolton who dared to hurt his sister? Who dared to threaten everyone closest to Jon?

_ I want my bride back, bastard.  _ Ramsay Bolton had written and if it was true that Arya had somehow escaped him then Jon wanted to be there for her. He couldn’t sit back and wait for his sister to come running to him. He would meet her halfway. 

He was done with Castle Black anyway.

A knock came at the door and Jon startled, looking to see Edd standing by the open doorway.

“Hey,” Jon breathed out. Edd smiled a dreary little smile for him and Jon, having missed his droll mannerisms and gloomy talks, lurched forward and hugged him. “I’m glad to see you.”

“I’m glad to see you too, Snow.” Edd said as they pulled away. His eyes had that odd, searching look Jon was used to getting from people after his revival but it vanished as soon as it came. “Rumors of your demise have been greatly exaggerated, it seems.”

“I wouldn’t say they have been greatly exaggerated,” Jon said and gestured to the seats over by the Hearth. “Come, sit. I need to talk to you.”

“Nothing important, I hope,” Edd said with a half-reproachful look.

_ He knows me too well. _

“Not even going to give me the benefit of the doubt?” Jon asked with a small hint of a teasing smile.

“Last time you called Sam in here, you sent him to Oldtown to become a Maester, with the wilding girl and Maester Aemon,” Edd recalled in a drawl. “And I was your Steward, so I knew there was a certain way you called your friends up here-- so you could tell then they had to go someplace far so things could go well for the Watch. Well, fuck the Watch. I want to stay by your side. Not Long Barrow or whatever other place you think I should go to this time.”

Jon looked down and laced his hands together in front of him, trying to perk up the courage to put this weight on Edd’s shoulders. “While I may have some misgivings about my former black brothers, it is undeniable that the Night’s Watch is important-- it’s the last line of defense between the Walkers and the rest of the world. We-- no, you are the ones who will maintain the Wall and sound the horns when the Walkers come.

“You’re needed so I’m sorry, Edd, I really am, but I need you to stay here while I go south to try and rescue my sister and maybe, retake Winterfell too. I don’t know yet. I just know that I can’t stay here. Not like this. I have to go.”

“But… what do you want me to do?” Edd asked with a befuddled frown marking his face.

And here came the hardest part, but Jon spit it out all the same: “Lead,”

Edd looked at him for a speechless tick of a moment before he burst out laughing. Holding his stomach and slapping his knee, he wheezed, enjoying the hilarity of Jon’s suggestion. Jon waited for him to calm himself down, but it was a long wait. He let Edd have those minutes-- to process the enormity of this request and it would be a request. He wasn’t Lord Commander anymore. He couldn’t order any of them anymore. 

“Hear me out,” He said when the laughter petered out to a few feeble chuckles. “I know you think this is a joke,”

“No,” Edd shook his head, wiping the tears from his eyes, a wide grin stretched across his face. Jon had never seen him smiling like that. “I know you’re not joking. The world went mad while I was gone to Long Barrow, I know it. Wildings are better allies than the Night’s Watch. You died and came back to life. And I’m now the last choice you have for a Lord Commander. Because all the capable ones are dead or gone.”

“I wouldn’t put this on you if I didn’t know you weren’t capable,” Jon decided to say.

Edd’s smile vanished just like that. “Can’t you give the leadership to one of the wildings? I wager they’re more capable.”

Jon ignored the idea. If he could, he would but being a Lord Commander required more than brawn or battle strategy. It required someone who knew his books. “You’ve been my steward for enough time. You know the job-- from overseeing the guarding of the Wall to the needs of our men during this coming winter. You know what our financial coffers look like and what we have to hide and what we owe. what we can spare and what we can’t. You have the mediocre but necessary knowledge so you get to have the final say. There’s no-one more qualified than you right now.”

Edd listened to him with a tight-lipped line that slowly turned into a frown of understanding as Jon’s speech ended. His eyes softened. “I really am the more qualified choice here, aren’t I?”

Jon gave him a grimace as his only reply.

Edd released a long groan, muttering: “The end really is nigh,”

Jon couldn’t disagree. As someone who had stared death in the eye and come back to life, he knew exactly how close they were to the world crumbling beneath their feet.

  
  
  


Jon had to go see Queen Selyse at some point. He’d been avoiding the meeting. His impression of her as a cold woman was grounded in stone and he knew he couldn’t expect anything surprising from their confrontation. She was predictable.

He still remembered her last noticeable remark to him:  _ Let them die.  _ It rung in his ears as he wove through the stone halls of King’s Tower. There had been an indifferent tinge to it that reminded him too much of Bowen Marsh and his accomplices.  _ Let them die. Let them die. _

_ Let him die. _

But Jon was being silly. Death had made him a cynic though perhaps, he had always been one. It didn’t matter. He would hear her out and then, he would take his leave.

As he approached the doors, he noticed the Queen’s men were short a few people. He bet some were still guarding Lady Melisandre. Mayhaps, they were worried he was going to kill the sorceress when they weren’t looking. Jon wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t. Ever since his death, something had changed in him. A nail embedded too deep in his heart. A lust for vengeance, for violence, for dying once again. It made him shiver to think of the dreams he dreamt the past two nights. Horrible dreams of him devouring animal and human alike. In his large mouth, they tasted the same-- of salt, copper, dirt, and something entirely too bitter.

“Lord Commander,” Queen Selyse greeted him as he was let inside her solar. “I’d hoped to talk to you sooner.”

“Apologies, my la-- your Grace. Death takes... some time to recover from.” Jon replied with a wince. “And I’m not Lord Commander any longer. It’s just Jon Snow now.”

She inclined her head, a curious gleam brightening her eyes. “I’ve heard them talking about you. It appears you have decided to follow my husband, after all.”

Jon almost felt bad for her. He felt reluctant to broach the subject but he did it the same. “My lady… surely, you must have heard of the Pink Letter.”  _ Surely _ , her men would have told her the contents of it. They had been there in the Shieldhall when Jon had announced his forthcoming departure from Castle Black to go save his sister. When she continued giving him a blank look, he said: “It said that your husband died during his siege at Winterfell.”

“Did it?” She asked rhetorically, raising her head high, nostrils flaring. The shy little, half-scarred daughter of Stannis Baratheon eyed her mother from the back with a concerned expression. Then, her blue eyes switched over to Jon’s face and widened at him with a pleading quality to it. Almost as if she was asking him to take back his words.

“All lies, of course,” Ser Malegorn said with a wave of his hand. “It’s the word of a bastard and the Bastard of Bolton, no less. I don’t believe a word of it.”

Jon wished he had his faith. Mayhaps, a few spare knights and Northerners survived from Stannis’ army but it didn’t seem likely that after all these days in the winter chill, Stannis’ southern knights had fared well during the siege. With no ravens from Stannis still, it was looking more and more likely that all hope was lost. 

Yet if the Queen and her subjects wanted to believe it, he didn’t want to deter them from their faith. He understood. He would leave them to their denial then.

“I hope that it is all lies, your Grace,” Jon finally said, bowing his head. And for the sweet little girl, Shireen, he opened up enough to offer: “Night’s Watch takes no part in political matters, but from the bottom of my heart, I wanted Stannis to win this battle.”

“Want,” Queen Selyse corrected him, baring her teeth. “You  _ want  _ King Stannis to win this battle. It isn’t over yet, Lord Commander. Not until I have his dead body in front of me. Not until I have  _ seen _ .”

Jon eyed her, weary of the fight between his hopes and his despairs so he just let it be. “As you say, my-- your Grace.” He was slipping on her title more often than not. It was quite telling. 

As Jon prepared to leave, the Queen said: “I will be leaving with you,”

“Your Grace?” He turned to her, surprise widening his brows.

“My men and I, we’ve stayed here too long. Lady Melisandre will come with us too. I will check this bastard’s words with mine own eyes.”

“But--” 

“You’re heading the same way,” Queen Selyse recalled, keeping her chin lifted and her tone firm. “We have the same enemy. Surely, we can share the same path.”

Jon blinked at her. This was unexpected, but not disagreeable. The more men he had at his side the better protected he could be if Ramsay decided to ambush him on his way to Winterfell. He wondered where this little desire to survive was coming from but he knew from where. He wanted to survive for his sister.

“That’s fine,” He rasped out. 

  
  
  
  


Satin insisted on going with him. So did Toregg the Tall, Brogg, Harle the Huntsman, Harle the Handsome, Ygon Oldfather, Blind Doss, and the Great Walrus. All wilding. All raring to go into battle. Jon, despite all his trepidations about not surviving this, selfishly agreed to take them with him. 

They were all packed up, readying their horses for departure in front of the gates when a horn sounded from the guardsman on the watch-tower. There was a moment when the guardsman clearly gauged the newly arrived visitors and then, shouted for his companion to open the gates.

The Gates slid open with a creak and in rode Tycho Nestoris of the Braavosi bank. As surprised as Jon was to see him back here (last he’d seen Tycho, he’d gone to see Stannis Baratheon), he couldn’t focus on the Iron Banker at the moment. 

He was not alone. A large man with a mop of white blond hair and a neatly-trimmed blond beard rode on a black courser. Behind him moved five other riders that Jon dimly recognized as some of Stannis’ southern knights. They didn’t look ragged or hasty to get inside so it didn’t look like they were running for their life. Perhaps, Stannis was alive, after all. Jon indulged the idea. 

But then, his eyes traveled over to the center where two girls mounted a brown garron. One of the girls wore a brown, woolen cloak lined with white rabbit fur over her head. Her nose was a broken, blackened crater in the middle of her face and her face-- as it came closer, Jon found it to be somewhat familiar. Behind the first girl sat a large, muscular lady who had a quiet strength in the set of her shoulders. The way she carried herself, it reminded Jon of spearwives. But she was no wilding. None of the two girls had been with Stannis when he’d left. So Jon was curious.

As the horses stopped inside the Gates, the blond-haired man riding at the front with Tycho climbed off his courser and went over to greet Jon.

“Justin Massey,” He introduced himself, gesturing behind him. “Have a gift from King Stannis here with me. And Tycho Nestoris, but he’s only here for some rest before we head for Eastwatch tomorrow as we’ll take a ship from there to Braavos. Have to get my King some sellswords. He sent a message too,” He handed an envelope sealed with black wax to Jon and grinned charmingly.

Half-numb and half-shocked, Jon wavered in plucking the envelope from Massey’s fingers but as the expectant silence went on, he grabbed it with reluctance. 

With narrowed eyes, he lifted his head to watch the girls clamber off their horse. The girl finally took her hood off. Her hair was a dark brown-- like Arya’s and his heart skipped a beat, thinking, maybe…

But then, she turned to give him an anxious, imploring look and the dream vanished in a poof of smoke.

Swallowing back his disappointment, Jon questioned: “Gift?” 

“Aye, do you not recognize her?” Justin asked, still gesturing behind him. At the girls, Jon realized.

The chunky woman with the girl stood there with her arms crossed, waiting for something. The girl shivered in her cloak, shifting on her feet nervously, looking anywhere but at him now. 

When Jon remained dumbfoundedly befuddled, Massey’s victorious expression melted and his hand sank back to his side. He looked over his shoulder and then, back to Jon’s bemused face before saying: “I wager the lack of nose might be a bit jarring-- a little bit of frostbite while she was running for her life, mind you. She’s grown since you last saw her too. Maybe, it’s hard to see it but if you looked closely, that girl there--” He pointed at the brown-haired, shivering girl. “--that’s your sister, Arya Stark.” 

Jon peered at Massey’s face closely to see if he was joking but the man seemed dead serious. “Where did you find her?” He finally had the strength to ask. He was lost once again. A despair was taking rooting in the place where his gut was, replacing all the newly sparked fire he had built in the three days since his death.

_ Gods, but my luck is wretched. _

“How did I find her? I didn’t find her,” Massey replied. “It was that turncloak-- Theon Greyjoy.” Jon twitched at hearing the name. “He jumped off the battlements with her. Rescued her, he says, with the help of a few whores and Abel the singer. Took her from Ramsay’s own bedroom chambers. Mors Umber helped him reach our King, if you can believe it, and King Stannis sent her with me so she could finally be reunited with her brother.”

A broken shard of his heart had moved up to block his throat, jabbing at his wet, bitter insides. With difficulty, Jon declared through the pain: “That’s not my sister,”

Massey goggled him, caught off-guard. “But--” He looked back and forth between him and his supposed sister. “But-- how can you be sure?”

“I would know if she was my sister,” Jon didn’t know why he was bothering with this. Hadn’t he had enough of disappointment for one day? Why must this person batter him right where it hurt? 

“But how can you be sure? You haven’t even looked at her closely.” Massey insisted, ignoring Jon’s grave tone. He turned to the girl and signaled her over. “My lady, here, come here now.”

The girl looked terrified but she strode over to them all the same. As Jon studied her features, he noted the guilt dancing all over her face: in her brown--  _ brown _ \-- shifty eyes, in her dry, swollen lips, in the twitch of her angled brows. 

She was a pretty girl, but she was no Arya.

“Hello, Jeyne,” He greeted her by her real name, because yes, he did recognize her now. He’d never been close to any of Sansa’s close friends, but he’d seen them around the corners of Winterfell’s halls, giggling to themselves about Arya Underfoot or whatever else it was that girls giggled about.

Though, Jeyne looked closer to tears than giggles at the moment. Tears slid down her cheeks as she sniffled. “I’m s-s-sorry, J-Jon. I’m r-really, really sorry. They made me,” She babbled between loud sobs. “They h-had to have a S-Stark and I was n-n-nothing to them as J-J-Jeyne Poole. They couldn’t find Arya! So I… so they sent me... The Northern Lords wouldn’t have sworn their allegiance to the Boltons if I said I wasn’t…” She swallowed, shuddering horribly. “When I finally escaped Winterfell,” She paused, a shaky breath catching her in its grip. Behind her, he could see Massey and the chunky woman gaping at her back. “T-Theon t-told m-me I-I was o-only w-worth s-s-saving... if I-I k-k-kept saying I was A-Arya…”

Jon felt pity for her. He rested his hands on her shoulder and let her cry her tears. It was unfortunate what happened to her, but deep in his heart, he was glad she wasn’t Arya. There were horrors unimaginable that her eyes had seen and suffered. And if what he’d heard of the Bastard of Bolton so far was true, he wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy.

If Arya had been captured and raped by that monster… it didn’t bear thinking about. He didn’t want Arya to come back to him broken like this.  _ If she was alive.  _ He knew she wouldn’t be hearty and wholesome like he’d last seen her but he wished--  _ he knew better _ \-- that she would hold her head up high like a warrior and stand strong when he did meet her.

She would be like Princess Nymeria. Steel in her eyes. Spine straight. Ready to take the world to storm. Not sniveling and shivering like Jeyne. 

_ But if Arya wasn't the hostage in Winterfell, where is she?  _ He thought.


	3. calling out your name from sweet lips

###  _ Sansa _

The ship rocked to the rhythm of a tumultuous sea. First it swayed to the right-- so much so that Sansa feared they might just fall off it. Then, it switched direction and swayed to the left. Sansa gripped the serrated ledge by the prow of the ship and stared hard into the gold-brown and amber glow of the sky as the sun made its departure from the sky. The blackish water of the Shivering Sea rippled wide and tall, jerking the cog named  _ Hidden Spear _ back and forth.

“You should take some rest in the cabin now,” said Shadrich, appearing behind her. “The waters will get more turbulent after the sun sets.”

She turned to eye him warily. His face however, was unreadable as always.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” She inquired in a hardened voice.

A curve shifted his lips, though his eyes were still swirling its own pattern of mystery. “Now, that-- would give the game away, my lady.”

Sansa glared at his easy-going manner. This was about her life and he couldn’t stop riddling away at her. “If you’re taking me to Queen Cersei, the least you could do is tell me. It would be a kindness, ser, to know my fate and to be ready for it.”

His smile stretched then and his eyes glimmered with amusement. “What would you do if that were true, I wonder? Jump off the prow of this ship?” He gave her a shrewd look that she liked not. “Perhaps, this is why you insist on staying here. To observe where we’re headed so that before we can hit the shore, you can off your own life if it’s anywhere near King’s Landing.”

Sansa had no elaborate plans such as that, In a way, her heart’s desire to enjoy the fresh wind and salty sea might be for the purpose of steadying her nerves. Steadying her nerves for what, she didn't know. Still, Shadrich’s suggestion sounded like good plan. Perhaps, she might just go through with it. That’s how much she loathed the idea of going back to King’s Landing.

That’s why she had been able to so willingly accept her place at the Vale. But then, Harry had touched her in a way that even Petyr Baelish with all his lust for her mother hadn’t dared to. Harry had taken liberties against her will because he knew he could. Because he had power. And in that moment, only one memory had stood stark against the noise: Lady Lolly’s withdrawn, haggard face after her rape in Flea Bottom. A chill sunk down her body then, rooting her feet to the ground, unable to move, unable to call out for help.

_ And call for whom? There was no-one there to save me. Not even my close friend, Myranda.  _ How close could they really have been? They only shared unnecessary gossip for unhelpful laughs. Sansa had wanted to live like she once did in Winterfell. Walking around hand-in-hand with Jeyne Poole at her side, giggling away at how fair the Lord of this or that was and how fat the one beside him was. 

Silly things. Not life-threatening at all. Not like the games Petyr played in his past-time.

“Ah, I seem to have given you a dangerous idea,” Shadrich said after her silence went on too long. He took a step forward, his head angled so that he was looking straight into her preoccupied eyes. “My lady, perhaps… it would be wisest if I did tell you where we’re going.”

Her eyes jumped to his too eagerly. A twitch on his mouth let her know he was enjoying her impatience. She bristled at that, jutting her chin. “Just tell me then. I don’t like surprises. And I don’t like you dithering away about the truth like a rat.”

He nodded. “Of course,” He back-stepped and gestured towards the stairs that would lead them to the cabins. “But this conversation might be better served with cooked meat and some wine, don’t you think?”

“No, thank you,” She said as she kept standing there, hating him for giving her a spark of hope.

He looked at her patiently. “My lady, this ship may not have walls but words are winds and winds carry faster on the seas.”

Which she took to mean was that the walls have ears and you need to listen to me like a good, little girl. She could hear those cautioning words as if they were spelled out of Petyr Baelish’s snake-tongue itself. 

So she stood her ground and scowled at him. “I’m not hungry,”

It seemed that his calm facade cracked slightly at her continued stubbornness because his eyebrow twitched and his lips curled down. She felt a thrill of satisfaction at that.

“You might feel differently if I were about to tell you that we are heading north,”

She remained unmoved, though inside, her mind stirred. “Are we?” She kept her voice solid though it cracked by the end. 

“We might be,” He said and her heart stuttered an erratic beat under her breasts. “We might not be. You cannot be sure until you come and sit with me in my cabin with some food in our stomachs.”

She couldn’t refute that she was extremely curious now and seeing as he was more stubborn of the two of them, she knew she couldn’t gain information by not giving ground. So she let him lead her to his cabin.

When they reached the door, Sansa saw that a skinny boy stood there much like a guard. 

“We’ll be taking dinner in our cabin,” Shadrich instructed the Cabin boy, who nodded once and left them alone to go inside.

There was a table in the middle and a straw bed in the corner. There were three chairs, at least, dispersed around the room. Shadrich took one of them and brought it to the table so she did the same. Once they were sat, he just stared at her.

She was very uncomfortable with the way he gazed at her. It was too probing. Like he could nudge her secrets out with thought alone. She shifted in her seat and looked around the room. It was bare but for a few measly possessions. A sword. Some armor. Some fur-laden clothes thrown on the floor.

“Do you know where your brother is, my lady?” asked Shadrich.

She looked at him, creases forming around her brows. “Jon?” He was the only brother who remained to her so that was the only name that came to mind.

He smiled. “Him, too,”

She didn’t like what he was implying or well, she liked it too much to put any faith in it. “You had something secretive in nature to tell me in the confines of your cabin. We are here so--” She pulled back her lips to growl: “--spit it out already,”

“Very well,” He leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers together. “I’m one of King Stannis’ men. I fought during the Battle of Blackwater Bay. I’m sure you remember how it was: Wildfire on our fleet, Tyrells joining Tywin Lannister, and the ghost of Renly Baratheon joining up with the Lannisters to avenge his brother and killer.”

Yes, she remembered. Though not quite like that. She remembered smokes of green glowing in the sky and thinking,  _ We’re all going to die here.  _ She remembered the prayers she prayed and the songs she sang, holding hands with other young maidens in the Red Keep’s sept-- pretending to pray for the King-- her cruel, cruel King. But the pretense had been for naught. Cersei hadn't bought a word of it.

Her drunken, fiery eyes had blazed at Sansa.  _ You're such a little fool. _

She narrowed her eyes at Shadrich. Something about what he said and what she’d heard from Baelish came

to mind.  _ It would make sense...  _ The connection seemed almost too sinful, too good to even be considered.

“Stannis is at Castle Black,” She said, slowly as if that would help calm the speedy pace of her heart. Could it be?

“Well, right now, he’s at Winterfell with some of his own men and some Northern men who think your sister, Arya Stark, is the hostage-bride of Ramsay Snow.”

“Ramsay?” Why did that name sound familiar?

“Bastard of Bolton, they call him.” Shadrich revealed, his eyebrows raised. “Illegitimate son of Roose Bolton. Lord of Hornwood and… if the rumors are true and it’s Arya Stark he’s married to... then, he’s Lord of Winterfell, too.”

Shadrich was goading her to respond, she came to understand as he spoke. He studied her expressions critically, much like a hawk. And to spite him, Sansa sewed an indifferent mask over her face, lifting her head and staring him down unblinking. Her heart groaned in protest though. It was raging. The wolf in her scratched at her insides, wanting to get out and howl.

A gleam appeared in his starless eyes and a feral grin grabbed his cheeks, raising them up until she feared him.

“You’re getting good at that,” He commented.

Her eye twitched. “And?” She replied. “What does it matter if Ramsay Snow is Lord of Winterfell?”

“No questions about your sister? Haven’t you ever wondered about her whereabouts?” When she just blinked back at him, he gave a husky laugh. “You’re a cold-hearted one, child.”

“I’m not a child,” 

“A woman, then.” He surmised.

She frowned harder. “Just tell me what it is you had to tell me,” She snapped. “I’ve had enough with your roundabout riddling.”

“Alright,” He agreed, nodding with his eyes on the table between them. “We’re heading North. To Winterfell.” He looked up just in time to catch the fleeting surprise and hope blooming on her face. She froze. He smirked. “And you’re to be handed to King Stannis. Perhaps, he’ll find some use of you. Perhaps, he won’t. Whatever it may be, I am loyal to the man and will be until the day I die.”

She swallowed the bitter bile stuck to her throat and opened her mouth. “That’s not all,”

“No, that’s not all. But you were in such a hurry, I thought I’d just give you the short version.” He said, teasing her, goading her once again. 

“What about my brother?” She asked. “You said something about Jon? And…”  _ Gods help me, I’m falling for his trick.  _ But she had to know. “And my other brother….”

There was a maddening glimmer in his eyes as he leaned over, watching her pulse pound on the side of her neck.  _ I’ve given him exactly what he wants.  _

“Where do you think Bran is?” 

“Bran is dead,” She blurted out, voice cracking. Her heart twisted and her stomach coiled into a tight, heated ball.

“But are you sure?” He inquired, his voice like fog in the blur of her own head. “How do you know he’s dead? How did you hear about his death?” Her mind raced, thinking about all the messages of death she had been a passive receiver of. _All those deaths-- Father, Bran and Rickon, Mother and Robb--_ _my whole family--_ _dead in the blink of an eye._

“I’ll answer that for you, sweet child. You heard it from someone in King’s Landing and they heard it from a missive sent by a raven. A report confirmed by Roose Bolton. A man who stabbed his King and your brother in the back. Tell me, how much faith would you put in a traitor’s words?”

She had never questioned it. It had been so official. So final. She had  _ never  _ questioned it. There had been so much happening. Winterfell burned, Bran and Rickon’s blackened corpses were found and--

“Their bodies were found,” She retorted.  _ Please, please, please... _

“Aye, unrecognizable. How convenient for them.”

“There were witnesses,”  _ Please! Prove me wrong! _

“Both Freys. I wouldn’t put much weight in their words either.”

“They were just kids,” She whimpered, cheeks wet and mouth a downward curl. “They couldn’t protect themselves, much less escape.”

“Now, you underestimate them and yourself, sweet one.” He said. She let herself break down then, shoulders shaking, quiet sobs hitching in her throat.  _ He’s broken me.  _ “Words are wind and wind is the most treacherous of all.”

“It’s cruel,” She sniveled _.  _ “Why would you tell me this if not to torture me? What good is it to know? What good is it to watch me weep for a moment of relief before they’re taken away from me again? It’s cruel!”

“For hope, child. You will need a mouthful of it to feed you this coming winter-- to keep you fighting for your life this coming battle. A battle you’ll have to wage all by yourself.”

With tear-stricken eyes, she looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

He just smiled that mysterious smile again. “Do you want to finally go home, child?”

_ With all of my heart. _

  
  
  
  
  


* * *

They arrived on the shores near the Grey Cliffs in three days time. It was north-east of Winterfell. A land owned by the Karstarks-- a dangerous place for her to be but she would only be passing by. Hopefully, the disguise built by Shadrich and his ilk would stick.

During the wait, Sansa rolled Shadrich’s suggestion around her head.

_ Not that I will have any choice.  _ She let the bitter notion bring her hopes to a halt. Yet the truth was that it was a better choice than any other one she'd been given after her Father’s death. It was real and true to everything she was and wanted to be still.  _ I want to be a wolf _ , she wished with such longing squeezing her stomach that she couldn't breathe for a moment.

_ I am a wolf _ , she heard a voice assert in her head. Desperate air locked up in her throat as she choked back the need. Ever since Shadrich’s suggested that Bran and Rickon were still alive, the need within her kept growing, engorged to the point that it frightened her.

_ I just want to see them,  _ She thought, lips trembling as her vision of snowy ridges and grey-white trunks of trees in the distance blurred.  _ It's not too much to ask, is it?  _

It shouldn't be but in this world-- a world she'd come to be so familiar with-- it was. Fate was never that kind and people, never as giving or gracious. She didn't understand Shadrich’s motives for kidnapping her and bringing her North. But she knew this whole expedition wasn't out of the goodness of his heart. It was greed that reigned supreme here and it would be greed that would fuck her over when this whole plan went awry.

“Are you ready, my lady?” Ser Byron asked, standing by the lardboard where the passengers were taking their leave through the plank that joined to the shore. There weren't many people in the ship. A few servers, one camp follower, the three hedge knights and a captain.

The captain and his servers would be staying in the ship. Ser Mogarth, Ser Byron and Ser Shadrich would accompany her the rest of the way. Three coursers were scattered on the crisp white shore.

Sansa let her spine straighten and pulled her hood up, walking through the plank and to the ground where her three captors waited with their horses: 

The dye was slowly fading out of her hair and that was a good thing, since she was going to ( _ King)  _ Stannis as Sansa Stark. Still, the coppery tinge of her hair would be distinct as they moved from this treacherous land that had sold out its loyalty for survival through the long winter. 

With the fluttering snow falling to the ground, gathering into little mountains, covering all the green around the cliffs-- it seemed winter was here.

She swept a hand out and felt as a few of the white snow melted into her palm. 

“Well then, it’s time to start trudging. We want to be past Karhold and near the Last River by nighttime.” Shadrich instructed them with a nod. The serious look on his face made her believe that even he, the one of mysterious smiles, was afraid to be here.

He had told her the situation around the North was perilous at best. 

“You may die on this journey. Hells, we all might. Are you still willing to go through the risks so you can reach home?” He had asked her only yesterday.

She had only given him a look, eyebrows raised, head high. 

_ With all my heart, _ she had said. 

With all her heart, she meant it. She would rather die than go back.

  
  


* * *

 

_ Jon _

For the past two days as they rode through the treacherous sludge and icy land of The New Gift, on their way to the Long Lake, Jon hadn't tried to sleep. No, it was more that he consciously attempted not to. For whenever he closed his eyes and let his mind and body rest from all the worries of the real world, the void called out to him. 

It hissed in sibilant phrases; questioning, demanding, and poking at him with displeased noises rippling at his ear. 

“Why? Why?!” It seemed to ask. “Why are you still alive?”

Then, there was another voice. One that was loud and clear at one moment and muffled at the next. It wasn't the void, Jon knew. Actually, it was the opposite.

It was like a strong, lone flame licking up the sides of his arms. Hot on his face, the breaths of an unseen God. 

“ _ Jon,”  _ It whispered a thing. Over and over again. “ _ You must… you must… you must…” _

Lady ( _ Queen)  _ Selyse, at last, commented on his state. Apparently, the hollow purple smudges under his eyes were a nuisance. So was his brooding company. Her and her men were a carefree sort: drinking wine and growing large fires around their camp without a worry. Jon didn't trust the open field. Last time he was near Queenscrown, he was almost killed by his lover. 

Then again, what did it matter where you were when Death came to take you?

“If you are not enjoying our company, by all means, take your leave,” The Queen had said. “Rhollor knows, you look dead on your feet as it is. Take some rest, boy.”

So Jon had left. Lying on his back with his hands behind his back, he stared at his tent’s ceiling. The more he stared, the more afraid he got because around his ear vibrated the hum of those sibilant demands.

With heart racing, he let exhaustion do him in and _ …. _

The darkness snatched him the minute his eyes fluttered shut. A hand grabbed him by the wrist, yanking him to it. A weight stayed his feet. The hollow, angry voices were louder, shaking the ground he stood on. He heard a sob in the wind and turned his head.

Seeing no-one, he looked around him and saw only a black fog clouding his sight. The fog was telling him something-- with a blaring numbness, he knew that it was only right that he return to it. It was calling to him so it was only right.

Heart pattering in his chest, snow fluttering on the ground, drums exploding in the distance-- he took a step forward. Into the inviting darkness he went. 

But he was pulled. No will came into account when he switched minds with that of his dearest friend.

From Ghost’s eyes, he saw a lone, grey horse racing south. On the back of the courser mounted a girl. He could hear her breaths come out in little hitches and gasps as she grasped with all her might to the reins. 

Ghost chased after her, sprinting fast and nimble on his feet. She was a delicate little thing. Like a breeze could throw her off the horse. Her back shook as she stifled her sobs. Ghost followed on the horse’s rear, eyes sharp on the hooded figure. 

She must have sensed him behind her because she turned around and suddenly--

Jon woke up with an impossible name on his tongue.

  
  


* * *

 

_ Sansa _

_ This cannot be happening.  _ She thought with a nerve-wrecked, stuttering shudder that overcame her whole body.

“What's the matter, my daughter?” Petyr Baelish asked with a sinister smile unfurling the corners of his silver-tongued mouth. “Aren't you happy to see me?”

The dead bodies of her former captors were strewn across the tent’s floor. The world shattered under her feet as she took a look around at the hopeless scene before her. Her skittering heartbeat roared in her ears; warning her, shouting at her that she was in danger and that she needed to run.

_ The blood. _ She couldn’t look away from it.  _ Oh, but there is so much blood.  _

Shadrich-- he lay face-down on the blood-tainted snow. His throat was cut right to the bone and  dark amber liquid gushed endlessly out of it. Yet it was his eyes that unsettled her most. They stared out into thin air, fixed on a point with his pale, white mouth gaping open. It was such a terrible sight. As horrible as the realization that there was no way out of this now. Her hopes had been squashed as easy as the sands on Dornish lands.

She let out a whimper and averted her gaze, letting Petyr think she was too scared to look. When instead, she was looking back to see a way out. Through the parted opening of the tent, she saw a horse standing there, waiting for its owner to come back. It wasn’t one of Shadrich’s or his men. As she thought about how to escape just in time to reach and mount the horse before they could catch her, Petyr gestured to the six men flanking his side. 

They charged for her.

_ Run!  _ The instinct was a white-hot flash behind her eyes. A chill that poured into her blood and was instantly transformed into a raging, heated resolve. Fists clenching at her side and wary eyes checking each of the six men’s position, she swiveled and ran.

A man grunted behind her, closer to her than others. His hand grazed her braid as he swiped at her but she was just a minute too quick for it to be more than that.

“Wait, I don’t want her harmed,” Petyr was ordering one of the men.

“But Lord Baelish--” His man protested and as his protest began, Sansa grabbed the reins of the coursers’ saddle and pulled herself on top of it. She only looked behind then and saw a dagger heading straight for the horse’s flank. 

With dread rising at the back of her head and her nerves shaken, she pulled at the reins and closed her eyes as the courser hastened to bolt. The lack of stumble in the horse’s gallop as it ran through the woods made her open her eyes again and look back one last time.

Petyr Baelish stood outside the tent, his hands behind his back and a smirk on his face. He would find her, his smile seemed to convey. She gritted her teeth and whipped back to see where she was going. Those men would come after her and they would inevitably find her if she didn’t find a good place to hide. 

Wherever could she hide though? First, she had to get away as far away from them as was possible. She wouldn’t stop for break. She would keep going as long as this horse would keep going.

Still, this was Northern land. She was much more familiar to this land than those southern hedge knights and sellswords Baelish had surely hired. So she could use that to her advantage. Then again, she wouldn’t survive her trek through this terrain for long without help. It was true that her true identity might find her some allies but it was also true that her father’s men had sworn their allegiance to Lord Bolton. Only because they thought Arya was married to Ramsay Bolton.

Shadrich had been amused and skeptical by the claim, as was Sansa. Anyone in their right minds would be. But the Northern Lords were believing it anyway. Maybe, they weren’t so loyal to the Starks as all that.

Sansa would see about that when she went to Winterfell. She just had to find Stannis.

  
  


 

* * *

It took hours and hours of riding on the horse, panting at the slap of the harsh, chilled wind bruising her cheeks a deep rogue and her thighs becoming considerably achy and bristled from the long course on the mount.

She wasn't used to this. 

In the dark, who knew where she was heading exactly? Somewhere during the run, she had closed her eyes and now, only clung to the rein with an intense desperation. 

How long was she going to last here?

Littlefinger had looked so deeply confident in himself, so unconcerned about her running off that he probably knew she wouldn't last long on her aimless trek towards Winterfell. And what would she do if Stannis wasn't found?

What if she starved on her way?

It would've been better for her survival if she'd just given up and gotten captured in Littlefinger’s vaguely threatening arms. 

She just… she just acted on instinct.

Thinking about being back under his ‘fatherly’ influence-- to rely on him, to be subservient, to act as if nothing was wrong. To be Alayne once again. Alayne, who stayed silent as kisses were forced on her mouth. Alayne, who laughed and giggled with untrustworthy friends, while somewhere out there, her siblings were alive and well. While somewhere out there, Winterfell still stood, waiting to be taken back. 

_ I need to go home. _ She had thought in a sudden frenzy and ran.  _ I need to go back to Winterfell. _

That damned dead man, Shadrich, had done this. It was his fault that hope was a sparkling light burning deep within her heart. 

_ Bran is alive. Reckon is alive. Jon is out there, at the wall, as Lord Commander. And Arya… maybe, Arya is out there too! _

Suddenly, she realized she was sobbing aloud. Hiccups and stutters of breaths hitched out of her heavy chest until she was dying just a little. 

_ Oh _ , she was going to die, wasn't she?

She had been playing it safe all this time. A lion’s hostage with a smile on her face, chirping all the pretty songs that she didn't believe in anymore. A mockingbird with a seductive flash in her eyes, pretending she wasn't always outside looking in on the temporary, fake peace around her.

And now, the minute she listened to her inner heart, to reach out to the wolf that had always resided deep in her soul-- somehow, all sense of self-preservation had fled the scene. 

She sobbed louder, keening from the stupidity of her impulsive decision. Why? Why did she think she was going to survive this?

Among the stampeding hoof beats, the quiet chitter of the woods, the howl of the wind, she heard something. Someone chasing her right at her horse’s tail. Her heart gave a trip and panic dumped ice-cold water over her head. In a sudden flash of fear, she whirled her face around for the first time since she'd escaped and saw red eyes above a furry, white muzzle.

She was confused and frightened for half a second about what she was seeing exactly but then, the realization hit her like a heart attack.

Automatically, she pulled on the reins and stopped the horse on its track. Her courser stumbled to a halt and she meant to climb down when it gave out right beneath her. She gasped, ducking down as she fell with the horse. Then, she peeked through the errant wisps of reddish-brown hair above and saw long, white legs of a direwolf.

It could only be a direwolf--  _ their _ direwolf-- that hovered over her, patiently, quietly waiting for her to lift her head and look at it properly.

A whisper escaped her mouth in a whoosh as she raised her hand and reached out almost unconsciously: “Ghost,” Her voice came out as a hoarse, nonexistent thing. It hurt to come out.

Tears welled up in her eyes and Ghost-- it could only be Ghost, no direwolf could ever be as quiet and thoughtful as Jon’s direwolf-- tilted its head and stared at her back, with something in its eyes that looked too much like recognition and affection.

Maybe, she was seeing things. Gods knew how long she had been running for. Gods knew how dehydrated and starved she must be. Gods knew how half-crazed she was after all that she had gone through. It was only sensible that she see things that weren't there.

She whimpered.  _ please don't let this be a dream. _

“Oh Gods!” She cried out from her scorched throat, tears rolling down her cold cheeks in a stream. Since she was half-mad already, she pulled her arms around the direwolf and pasted herself to the animal with all her strength. And sobbed and sobbed through all her still burning grief.

She laughed into snow-coated fur, rubbing her wet cheeks into them, nuzzling and finding some kind-of comfort in them.

“Ghost,” She murmured slowly, blinking away the tears, staring at the dark woods that still surrounded her. “Where's Jon, Ghost? He must be with you, right? He has to be. You're his direwolf. Jon mustn’t be far away, right?”

She retracted from Ghost and stared up at the somber reds studying her watchfully.

She grimaced. Yes, it would be far too lucky for her to find Jon as well as his direwolf. Mayhaps, Ghost had been allowed free rein to trudge wherever it liked in the North. It sure looked like that.

But on the off-chance that Jon wasn't far away from them, she pulled herself together and got up, off the dying horse that she now saw had been stabbed on its flank. 

Littlefinger’s men. 

It must have hardly felt the pain, but it had been bleeding out all the same. Telling it to stop had been too much to ask. As long as it had been running, the courser had been fine. Now, it lay in the snow with no intention of ever getting up again.

She stepped away from the soon-to-be-corpse and patted the direwolf that was sticking to her side with at least, the same zealousness she felt. She wondered if this was what she'd feel once she saw her family.

This inner feeling of never wanting to let go. To keep Ghost by her side no matter what. She didn't want to separate. It would feel too empty. Too hopeless.

If just one direwolf-- not even  _ her _ direwolf-- had her feeling this indescribably giddiness, then she wondered what she'd feel like when she saw Jon, Bran, Rickon and Arya again.

She wanted to meet them, wherever they were, more than ever. 

And first, she'd start with Jon.

She knelt beside the direwolf, looked it in the eye. “Ghost, boy,” She pleaded with her lips quivering. “Please tell me where to find Jon,”

Ghost let out a small huff, with a head bob that looked like a nod and turned left. She followed it with her eyes as it ambled forward. When she didn't step after it, it looked back with its quiet, waiting eyes. 

She smiled. Yes, she knew now for sure that Ghost had been waiting for her to ask it that question. 

She pressed forward in the cold biting snow, following slowly but surely after Jon’s direwolf.


	4. choking back happy tears

_ Jon _

He had left in a hurry, with cries and shouts of questions and protests following after him. Patience had shed his

skin long ago and now he was just a feeble body in the middle, ambushes by the powerful lure of the abyss and the dull, cruel and hopeless land before him. 

Besides, he hadn’t a whit of time.

If the vision was correct and it tended to when it came to him dreaming through Ghost’s eyes, then he should be hurrying forward, not sticking around to answer prying questions.

So mounting a black gelding, he took off in haste.

He wasn't sure what he had seen in the dream. Sometimes, dreams were just dreams but knowledge that it wasn’t just a dream thudded inside him painfully, in such clarifying detail that he could hear his pulse trip and race. 

That face that he'd seen in the dream— a lily-white face with two pink patches burned right on her high cheekbones and the watery shine of her sapphire eyes contrasted greatly against the drab, grey of her cloak. Flyaway locks of brownish hair elongated in the air behind her with the billowy breeze and at the end of those locks was a tinge of red—  _ dare he hope?   _

It really  _ couldn't _ be but it had to be because if not, then what were his options?

He didn't want to feel hopeless anymore and Ghost was showing him something that made it seem possible. 

Sucking a bracing breath in, he felt overwhelmed by emotions as his horse rode south on a direction he’d chosen instinctively. 

Exhilaration grabbed him by the throat and served him a fantasy every time he blinked— a sweet one— perhaps, you could even call it a nostalgic one.

A flicker of light was so near, he could almost taste it.

He didn't know where he was heading. His hands seemed to have a mind of their own and they moved accordingly to a distant, inaudible howl in the neck of dark, shrouded woods. He was riding on the high of emotions and a certain intuition from the visions he was acquiring thanks to Ghost. 

Each time he blinked, he stole fleeting glimpses of  _ her _ in the breeze-ridden snow, trudging against the force of snow and wind. Her robes fluttered around her, more often than not hiding her face from his all-too keen eyes. In the latest vision, he was stalking ahead of  _ her _ , sniffing for any hint of danger— either it be beast or man, he would tackle them to the snow if they so much as approached  _ her _ . Under his feet cracked brown twigs and sensing Jon’s buckling desire, he sneaked a look behind him to check if  _ she _ was following but the minute he did, Jon resurfaced in his own body. 

He cursed internally. He trusted Ghost to take care of her but for how long could she survive in this weather? 

He was worried. It was a difficult and long journey in pursuit of her on horse alone but she was walking and in this chill? How was she faring? Walking through the sludge alone would be… immeasurably hard in her addled state. 

Ghost was with her though and Jon was Ghost. Except that feeling was never this visceral, never like he was one minute a half-dead, half-alive human riding a horse during the oncoming sunrise and another minute, a ruby-eyed white direwolf leading a helpless girl to the first sign of shelter. It never felt like Ghost and him were one except when he had been occupying Ghost’s body.

Maybe, it was because of that?

As the gelding rushed past midnight and into dawn’s first crack of light, Jon was senselessly attacked by blooming suspicion. If that glimpse of  _ her _ had just been a trick of the eye, a momentary lapse of judgment— if he was even heading in the right direction— he would not be able to suppress the hurt beast clawing at his guts. He would not be to stop himself from…

The only thing keeping his mind above the futility of hope was a prophecy— a prophecy it seemed he’d heard a long time ago. But no, it wasn’t that long ago, was it? Melisandre— a woman he no longer put any faith on— had said something about his sister running off from a marriage and heading for him. Hadn’t she?

Did any of it make sense? He didn't know. All he knew was the tide of water roaring around his ears, turning him numb to every other logic. 

_ Ride faster before she, too, slips right out of your grasp _ . The tide seemed to cry out.

He'd deal with any disappointment later on. 

_ Later _ . 

He just needed to see with his own eyes. Ghost’s eyes weren't exactly the best way to confirm his suspicions and doubts and  _ hopes _ .

So he slapped the rein harder on the gelding’s back and kept listening to his instinct even if it might fail him.

_ Wait for me.  _ He promised to the winds _. _

  
  
  
  


* * *

 

The world was awash in color. When he hadn’t been looking, a tiny thread of indigo mixed with gold light had grown and conquered the cloudless sky. It almost hurt his stinging, bloodshot eyes to blink up at it.

His icy hands were slow to come off the reins as he looked around the grove. He was sure  _ they _ were here. His last vision of them at least had indicated so.

And then, he heard a weak whine swell amidst the harried bellows of arctic gusts that blew hither and thither with no hints of stopping.

Clambering off his horse in a haste, he picked his way through the snowy field until he looked behind a wide, dull-colored trunk of a tree and felt his eyes widen as they landed on a body lain on the white-laden ground. It was covered with a grey cloak like he’d seen in his first and last vision. Ghost had folded himself beside her as if to prevent the blows of the worst winds from attacking her slumbering figure. 

Jon swallowed against the tightening of his throat and tried his dry tongue. “Ghost,” He croaked. 

His direwolf looked up at him, unsurprised by his appearance, looking for all the world like it had been patiently awaiting him. It bobbed his head and nuzzled its muzzle against the supine figure’s heavily-layered waist. 

Jon, with a tremble starting in his fingertips, stumbled the last few steps to the both of them and felt his legs give out underneath him as a glimpse of a familiar face caught his sight. He panted, numb and parched and  _ starved _ as he seated himself next to her. Carefully, slowly, he reached— as if he feared that if he went too fast, she would disappear. Shaking off his nerves with a physical movement of his wrist, he pushed the flap of grey hood covering the face he'd been  _ craving _ to see since last night.

It was her, after all. 

Her lips were blue though. Her pallor a tinge too pale for his liking. And her eyes were shut closed with ease in such a cold, wintry weather that he feared the worst.

_ Please, don't be dead.  _ A whimper escaped him. Ghost watched him curiously, tilting its head.

_ Gods, please don't be dead. _ He prayed, gritting his teeth.

At first, his hand wavered in the air before it rested on her cold, ashen cheeks and he flinched at the feeling of nothing under the leather fabric covering his hands and his benumbed fingertips beneath. Her head was turned just slightly to the side and his fingers quivered over her slanted neck. 

He bit off a groan, pulled off his gloves and went back to press at the side of her neck.

_ There _ . A small pulse fluttered underneath his quivering fingertips.

He exhaled a relieved sigh, hanging his head down as he let himself accept that he wasn't too late, that his sister-- that  _ Sansa _ was here, that she was alive.

He never thought he'd be so happy to see her. Yes, Arya, Robb, Bran, even Rickon. But Sansa. Hadn't all she'd ever done since she was old enough to understand the meaning of the word bastard… 

No, he shook his head. It didn't matter now.

He grabbed her arm and dragged her until she was in his arms. She was like leaden weight. He should wake her up, maybe, but he wanted to recover first from the heady giddiness that was entering his system. An inappropriate grin peeked out of his always-solemn face as he stood up with her held in his arms. 

No, this was no time to be joyously celebrating something when he wasn’t even sure she would survive long. She felt so small and light in his arms— like dead-weight in the sea. 

He pressed her close to his chest and stepped forward.

_ Sansa _ . The thought refused to leave.

Gods above. He never imagined this. Never even in his wildest dreams.

He almost let out a chuckle but stopped himself. They weren't out of the woods yet. He needed to take her someplace warm before she really did die. His immediate options were bleak though.

Queen Selyse wouldn't wait for him back at their tents and he didn’t trust her. Winterfell was far and most likely, enemies had it occupied in the meanwhile (despite his hope that Stannis had outwitted the Boltons). Castle Black was far away too.

They had to go to a nearby Inn, then. Jon told Ghost to scout ahead, get some game for himself if he was hungry and mounted his horse with Sansa lolling around his arms in front of him.

It felt good. Even unconscious, her presence felt soothing to his soul, like a warm balm had been applied to a half-opened wound. Like a fire lit up a dark ditch in the ground. 

He was a man reborn. 

A man with purpose. 

And that purpose was to keep Sansa safe, through any means possible.

He smiled and set off on his search for shelter.

  
  
  


* * *

 

_ Sansa _

She woke up in pieces. A half-awake part of her couldn’t quite understand the reason why she felt like all her limbs and face had been put underneath a furnace. Everything felt so warm and gentle and easy as breathing. Last she remembered, her throat had felt like a scorching wasteland had found residence there and from her dry mouth, smoky plumes of ice sputtered out as she struggled to walk and walk and walk until she found…

Her brows crinkled as she realized the impossible feeling of her surroundings. It had been so cold before— so unimaginably chilly that at one point, she remembered her aching, limping legs had faltered to a halt before in a daze, her head had careened slowly down until her vision turned black.

During her descent to the ground, she remembered thinking she was going to die.

She wasn’t dead though, which was strange since she had all but resigned herself to that fate at the end of her extended trudge through snow fields and small forests.

Rubbing the back of her hand against her eyes, she opened her eyes only to end up staring at the wooden ceiling. She glanced to the side and blinked at the white-furred creature coiled on itself in the corner of the room. Then, she blinked again and saw a curly head resting next to her blanket-covered legs.

She sat up, blinking rapidly, looking around to confirm where she was. It wasn't quite as familiar but some distant memory niggled in her mind all the same. It looked strangely enough like a shabby room in one of those inns Father and her siblings had visited during their many trips to different Northerner bannerman. 

Why was she in an Inn though?

Actually-- she eyed the man dozing half on the bed she occupied and half on a chair-- better question would be who was he?

But she already had an inkling, didn't she?

Her heart raced in a moment of pure exhilaration.

No, no, it was too early to feel like this. She had to confirm it. Had to see that face with her own eyes. 

Raising an arm forward, she caressed the temple just within her reach, pushing away the curls hiding his sleeping eyes. Her breath hitched. More sure now, she cupped his warm cheek and attempted to turn it in her hand and it did, with furrows marking Jon’s forehead.

She released a puff of heavy breath, sagging forward as she eyed him openly, with an increasingly blurry vision as tears welled up.

Gods. It really was Jon.

Small sobs started somewhere in her chest and hiccuped out of her with hitched stumbles. That weak noise reached out to the slumbering figure until Jon stirred and his eyes snapped open, shifting over to her sniveling face.

“Jon,” she murmured, a wavering smile curling on his lips. Oh, but she was so happy, she could hardly contain it. 

Jon jolted from the bed and from her hands that had been resting on his cheek. He looked at her, surprise and disbelief warring with each other on his face.

“Jon!” she whimpered, shoulders shaking with an unspoken longing, with an unexpected joy. She allowed her arms to reach out for him, hands outspread.

He looked at her hands, at her arms before studying her face carefully. “Sansa?” He questioned, as if half-unsure.

She nodded, tears streaming down her face. “Yes,” 

There was a pause. For a small intermittent moment, she thought he must not care for her very much. After all, she hadn’t been very nice to him back then, but that moment was gone once Jon grabbed her round the waist and pulled her to him.

With arms fastening around his neck and sinking into the space around his shoulder, she sobbed with stuttered breaths and quivering frame.

_ I’m home. _

  
  
  


* * *

 

They stayed like that for a long time. It was like they were high off the many mixed emotions because neither one was willing to let go anytime soon. They just clutched harder, because the need rippled loudly against their eardrums. They both instinctively knew without a doubt that being with each other was the best thing to happen to both of them for a while now and they wanted to hold onto that pure feeling with stubborn nails digging in.

  
  


* * *

 

“Oh,” She let out a contented sigh against his leather jerkin, rubbing her cheek against his hard, firm shoulders that held a telling strength and reliability they hadn’t seem to before. 

“It’s good to see you, Jon,” She finally said, ripping off the magic of the moment with her words.

Jon, as if suddenly aware of his position again, tensed and pulled away. 

“Sorry,” He said while clearing his throat. He sounded all raspy and hoarse, like he’d been crying too. He could have been and she’d never know since she hadn’t been looking. She had been absorbed in her own relief, but looking at him now, she wondered if their feelings resembled. 

“It’s good to see you too, Sansa,” He said with a smile tipping the edges of his lips. It made the weight around her shoulders vanish.

She smiled back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, i love how readily you guys have responded to this story but just to warn you, when I wrote the three chapters of this fic, i had just finished reading ADWD and was feeling some sense of thirst for more, I guess. But it's been a few months since that happened so... the thirst has dwindled a little??  
> (anyway, if you want, you can take the fourth chapter as the last chapter or wait for me to update in who knows how many weeks or months... I literally have no idea. when inspiration strikes, you know...)


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